Tortured Dolls
by aBeautifulLiar
Summary: Taken from everything they knew, tortured, forced to commit acts that none of them can forgive themselves for - each girl has their own way of coping with everything they went through, but will they find a way to move on? Freedom was everything they had wanted, but it's time to deal with the reality of what they went through and suddenly, freedom doesn't feel so free.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So, I've had this idea for a while now, since the girls were kidnapped by Charlotte and I finally decided to write it down. I'm not sure if it's worth carrying on, I kind of had the idea that this would be the prologue and then the first chapter would be set three years prior to this. But let me know if you would like to read more in the reviews! All are greatly appreciated and I would love to read what you guys think.**

 **Disclaimer: The characters and the show belongs to Pretty Little Liars, I own nothing other than the storyline of this story.**

" _You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in, in the hope that you might be lucky and the knife has actually been staunching the blood." - Nick Hornby_

Caleb shot up when he first heard the frantic knocking on his door, his eyes moved to the alarm clock next to his bed, a frown on his face when he saw that the time read two in the morning. Confusion cloud his brain, and he rubbed his eyes before he threw the covers from his body. He quickly grabbed whatever t-shirt he could find first, and then took his baseball bat from the side before he slowly moved towards the front door of his apartment. He hadn't had to use it yet, but he was willing to bet that whoever was desperately trying to get into his apartment so late at night, wasn't going to be the bearer of good news.

The twenty-one year old man took another step forward before he hesitated for a moment when the knocking came to a stop. Maybe they had given up, maybe whoever was determined for him to open the door had decided that he wasn't going to open the door to them. But, through the silence, he could hear the sound of heavy breathing,a slight scratching on his door and it only served to unsettle his stomach further. His heart thumped and he held the bat tighter in his hands before he approached the door, when his eyes were met with the peep hole, the bat dropped to the floor and he stood there for a moment with his hand pressed up against the door.

He couldn't see her face but he knew it was her, he could feel her presence. But he needed a moment to compose himself, because he had seen her face before. For the first year, he had seen her everywhere – in every single blonde person that walked past him in the street, in every fashion conscious young woman he just happened to glance at, he had fooled himself into thinking it was Hanna Marin each and every time until the first time he found himself sitting at the police station when a college student had phoned the police on him for grabbing her arm as she walked past him.

After that, he told himself that she was gone, if she was there, then she would have said hello, she would have run into his arms. He had spent the first year convincing himself that it was all a horrid mistake and she would turn up at any moment, and the subsequent two years telling himself that he was never going to see her again.

Three years. He had been eighteen when he had last seen his first love, and in those three years, he had struggled to move on. He couldn't and wouldn't be able to move on until he knew what had happened to her, he needed to know before he could even consider giving up on her. He shook off those thoughts though as his hand moved to unlock the door, slowly opening it up as though if he moved too quickly, she would disappear – how did she find him?

Her eyes met with his eyes and his heart stopped for a second, the person in front of him was a mere shadow of the girl he had loved. She was seventeen years old when he had last seen her, and whilst it had been with her in an orange jumpsuit, she still looked as beautiful as the day he had met her. But the person who stood in front of him three years later was pale, bruised, her piercing blue eyes were a shade of grey, her cheekbones protruded and his heart dropped when he noticed just how tiny she seemed. He felt sick just looking at her, thinking about everything that could have happened since he had last seen her.

No one had believed him. The police had followed the line of enquiry that Hanna and her friends had orchestrated a plan to go on the run from the charges that were about to be brought against them in regards to Mona's murder. He knew it wasn't true, and no matter how much evidence of A he had brought to them, and no matter how much he begged them to believe that the four girls had been kidnapped and anything could be happening to them, no one seemed to take him seriously. Except for the girls parents; they all did their best, along with Toby, Alison and Ezra to find the people who had been stolen from them but they had come up empty every single time.

As each year passed, their desperation never stopped and the amount of love they felt never dwindled but their hope did. One by one, they started to drop out of the search parties until none of them had the energy to walk through the woods, or travel across into the next town and the town beyond that to see if anyone had seen them. Their hope had vanished with each passing day and soon enough, Caleb was left with nothing other than the memories and the knowledge that Hanna would never run away from him, or what they had. No matter what the police tried to tell him, he knew she was in danger and he hated how they would so happily turn their backs on four young women who needed them.

Toby couldn't even wear the uniform after it all; it was a shame, and Caleb had tried to convince him otherwise as he told him that he was a good officer, that he could change the way the Rosewood police think and the way they do things but the weight of his own colleagues not believing him was too much and he had hung up his uniform and tried to forget all about how much he had wanted to make a difference in the small, but drama filled town of Rosewood.

The police had let them all down, but none other than the person standing in front of him. She had been left all alone for three years, undergoing things he could only imagine. "Hanna?" He finally spoke, breathless as he just took the moment in. He didn't move towards her, he had no idea what she had been through or how she had gotten there, he couldn't risk terrifying her even more. Although he wanted nothing more than to just wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

Her eyes were clouded with confusion when she looked up, and stared at the person in front of her as though she had no idea where she was, or how she had gotten there. He had so many questions but none of which he could ask right then, not when the person he loved so much was standing in front of him in nothing but a t-shirt that was hanging off her tiny frame. He had so many things he needed to do – he needed to get her inside, he needed to keep her warm whilst he called the police, an ambulance, her mother, Toby, Ezra, Alison, all of their parents to see if anyone else had made it home as well or if Hanna had been the only one to escape.

She didn't say a word as she looked at him, so he slowly moved to rest a hand on her back, gulping down bile when he felt her bones beneath his fingertips as he led her into his apartment. He wanted to apologise for the mess but it seemed menial in comparison to the fact she had been with A for three years. She had been without him for three whole years and he swore he would never let her out of his sight again if he could help it. "Sit." He whispered, helping her down onto the couch before he hurried to grab his phone and then ran into his room. He didn't hesitate to grab the most comfortable, biggest hoody he could find as he dialled 911.

"Here..." His voice was gentle as he handed it to her and her nose instantly went to the fabric, a ghost of a smile on her face as she remembered the scent she had loved so much. "I need the police and an ambulance, please." He managed to get out, "Yeah, my girlfriend has been missing for over three years and she just turned up at my door step... Hanna Marin, her name is Hanna Marin. Tell Detective Tanner that she needs to get here now." After he gave them his address, he hung up and looked at her, "I'm going to lift that t-shirt over your head, okay?"

She only nodded her head and he moved to lift it from her frail body, his hands shaking when he saw the extent of the injuries that littered her body. Scars littered her pale skin, fresh bruises along with old ones, scrapes and cuts that looked as though she had been running and he wanted to know where she had been running from. Had she been so close to him all this time? Slowly, he put the hoody on her and pressed his lips to her forehead, before his eyes glanced down at her bare feet. They were covered in large cuts and dirt, so he knew she must have been in the woods at some point. But how far had she been? And had she been there for three years?

He softly moved to sit next to her, his heart fluttering when she moved to put her hand in his and rested her head on his shoulder. Her blue eyes fell to a close and he knew she must have been exhausted, he wished she would say something but he understood why she hadn't. She was there and she was alive, that was all that mattered to him, he was never going to let her go again. With a shaking hand, he typed out the text he had never thought he would be able to, to everyone other than Ashley – she deserved to hear his voice rather than see the words on the screen – _Hanna's home. Is anyone else?_

He received the first text back before the police arrived, from Ezra – _Aria's home, too. Going to hospital, see you there?_ He typed a quick reply, his heart thumping against his chest when Toby text him and then Alison, all four of them were home and all four of them were as safe as the four traumatised girls could be. But why? After three years, why would A let them go?

His eyes closed, and he held the phone to his ear when he dialled a familiar number, "She's here." He whispered into the phone the moment she answered, her voice filled with sleep and then he could practically hear her jumping out of bed and getting dressed. They didn't have to say another word to each other, he knew that she would be there before Detective Tanner was, so he hung up the phone and looked at Hanna, "Your mom will be here in five minutes," He reassured her, feeling a tear falling down her face and onto his shoulder, "Spencer, Aria and Emily all made it home, too... you're all going to be okay."

The years had taken his toll on him, he had found himself going over the day Hanna knocked on his door or Ashley's door a thousand times over. He had thought about what he would say or what he would do if he ever saw her again but with her sitting right next to him, he had no idea if anything he could say would be the right thing. He just had to wait a few minutes for her mother to be there and maybe she would know what to say to Hanna, she would know the right things.

A breathless red head ran through the door moments later and she moved quickly to drop to her knees right in front of her daughter, "Oh, Hanna, oh my baby girl... you're home, you're home." Their eyes met and Hanna let out a broken sob before her arms wrapped around the woman she never thought she would see again. Ashley's arms wrapped around her, and her eyes met with Caleb's, "The police are coming, I heard sirens, I'm not leaving her alone with them for even a second. I don't trust them."

He nodded in agreement, about to say something but instead, was distracted by the sound of someone walking into his open door. Detective Tanner, just as he had asked for, her eyes fell onto a shaking Hanna before she took a deep breath and motioned for the paramedics to follow her in, "Is someone going to tell me what's going on?" She asked and Caleb just looked at her with nothing but hatred in his eyes as he stood up, "I told you, I told you a million times over that she had been taken and you didn't believe me. Does she look like someone who just ran away?"

With a look of disgust at the woman, he turned his attention back to Hanna, knowing his only focus needed to be on her right now and not the person who had let her down. If they had helped, maybe they would have been able to find the four of them sooner, if someone had actually believed them, then she could have been home years before and he wouldn't have to try and figure out how he was going to help her move on from years of damage. If someone had actually believed him... maybe everything could have been okay and the person he loved wouldn't be shaking in her mother's arms whilst the paramedics tried to convince Ashley to let go so they could check on what injuries the young woman had.

If someone had believed him, it wouldn't have taken three years for Ashley to hold her daughter.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Wow, thank you for all of the reviews, please keep them coming! I'm going to update this story as much as possible because I have so many ideas on what happened to the girls whilst they were in there with Charlotte and how Hanna is going to recover from the past three years. If any reviews have any ideas they would love to see played out in this story in regards to the torture the girls went through, I would love to hear them!**

 **Disclaimer: The characters and the show belongs to Pretty Little Liars, I own nothing other than the storyline of this story.**

" _The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained."_

Hanna's eyes fluttered open, surprised to see the bright lights above her head and the sound of chattering around her. Leaving that place had almost seemed too good to be true, she had expected to wake up and be right back there. She had thought it was just a cruel dream, one that had felt so real because actually waking up somewhere other than that hell, had just seemed too unrealistic. For one year, they had fought for their freedom, they had done everything they could to hatch some sort of escape plan and they had spoken of their families and the people who meant so much to them as though they would see them again.

After their eleventh escape plan failed, the hope started to dwindle. Suddenly, they were talking of the people on the outside as though they would never see them again, Hanna started to refer to Caleb in the past tense, as though _he_ was the one gone. She would hide in the fake cupboard that was meant to reflect the cupboard in her own bedroom, and in that second year, she would talk to Caleb and her mom, hoping that somehow, they would hear her and they would know she was still alive. It was hell being there, but she couldn't imagine what it was like not knowing – with Alison, they had found a body and whilst it wasn't her, they had what they believed to be closure. The people who loved them didn't even have that, they were living in limbo, forever wondering and never knowing what had happened to the four girls.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she stopped talking to her imaginary Caleb and her mom, and stopped talking about them to her friends. It had taken so long but then every last bit of hope she had disappeared. It had almost happened overnight, as though she had woken up one day and decided she was never going to escape. That first day there, she had started a tally on how long she spent there and her fingers had moved over the marks etched into the wall that had stopped on day one hundred and seventy two. Sometimes, she wished she had carried on so she knew how long it had been since she had last spoken to the person she loved so much. She couldn't even say it had been since her last taste of freedom but thanks to the failure of the Rosewood Police Department, she hadn't even been free before she was abducted by A.

In the distance, she could hear her mother's voice, desperately crying out for her before she told the doctors she was going nowhere. It had been over three years, Hanna could hear her repeating those words over and over again as the doctors tried to push her out of the room so they could check on her daughter without her interference. Hanna wondered what month it was, wondering if she had missed her own twenty-first birthday for just a moment before she almost laughed at herself – did it matter? Would she really want to celebrate anything else ever again after everything that had happened?

There were familiar screams that seemed to echo through the hospital, screams she had heard far too many times before and she felt herself starting to sob. She wasn't back there, she knew that but those noises were enough to take her right back to where she had spent way too long. She was meant to have graduated high school, she was meant to have started college, she had hoped to move to New York with Caleb – by twenty-one, she wanted to be engaged to him as she started her final year in college. She had plans, so many plans and instead, she was sobbing in a hospital bed as she listened to Spencer's panicked screams as she had done so many nights before.

Ashley came into her line of vision, her hand resting on her daughter's forehead before she ran her fingers through her hair, and then leaned down to press her lips to her forehead. Whispered words of comfort followed and Hanna just kept staring at her as she calmed down; the doctors didn't try to move her this time as Hanna's eyes remained focused on her mother's. She was finally calm enough for them to see to her injuries, as the blonde placed all of her attention on the woman she never thought she would see again. The last time she had seen her face had been a newspaper cutting on the second year anniversary of their disappearance, she had been standing there with the rest of their parents, appealing to the press to help them find their daughters. A had let them keep the picture and for a while, it had been the only thing she had that reminded her that despite how much time had passed, there were still people who cared for them all. People who still fought to find them, even if they never could.

Hanna still hadn't said a word, the doctors and the nurses had aimed questions at her but she had yet to respond. She didn't know when that particular burn was acquired, she could barely remember how it happened – was it from the time she had refused to leave her room when A had demanded she would? Or maybe it was from when she refused to hit Aria with the baseball bat A had placed in her hands? Maybe it was from the time she had refused to let go of Mona's dead body, or the time she had wrecked her room when A had kept them trapped in there for over a week. All of it blurred into one, hazy, terrifying memory and Hanna couldn't differentiate between every single moment.

Silent tears fell down her face when she heard a doctor mumbling about an infected wound on her thigh, as a nurse tended to her sore feet. She could barely feel the pain anymore, after so long of going through it with injury being added on top of injury, it was hard to even focus on what hurt where. All four of them had tried to cope with it in different ways, but Hanna had completely shut down. Sometimes, she hadn't even felt what was meant to be causing her the greatest of pain. Spencer still fought back as hard as she possibly could, she still screamed loudly, she still pushed back when she could. Aria cried a lot, she spent most of her time with her arms wrapped around her knees and tears running down her face – she barely spoke, and when she did it was in hushed tones. And then Emily was somewhere between the three; sometimes she would cry, sometimes she would fight back and sometimes she would just stare ahead, blanking everything out and then sometimes, she would taunt the person who was hurting her, she would remain silent but there was a smirk on her face and a daring look in her eyes as though she was telling A to give it their best. To do everything they could to try and break the person they had already broken.

Sometimes, Hanna wondered what the point was in torturing them physically anymore when the damage had already been done. They were already broken, they had already lost hope, they stopped thinking about escaping and they stopped talking about the future. If A wanted to hurt them, it had already been done and it was only then that Hanna realised that the person was truly getting pleasure from their pain – why else would they be kept there for so long and then released as though no time had passed at all? Handed a piece of paper with an address on it and then told to run, run faster than they ever had before before their mind was changed. Why? After so long, why decide to just let them go?

The questions whirled through her mind, and she finally closed her eyes in an attempt to stop the tears. She was home, she was meant to be safe but she felt anything other than safe. Maybe that was all A wanted, for them to never be able to move on from anything that happened, for them to never feel safe and happy and loved again. Maybe that mission was accomplished after so long and that was why she was handed an address to her boyfriend's (or maybe he was her ex-boyfriend, she quickly questioned herself, considering how long it had been since she had last seen him) apartment.

Hanna had no idea how much time had passed between that moment and when she opened her eyes again – suddenly, the doctors were gone, there was no chattering, the lights had been dimmed and there were wires surrounding her. She could hear a beeping that sounded through the room, and her eyes moved to observe the machine next to her bed, watching for just a second as she reminded herself that she was alive. And she had no idea if she was happy about that.

Her eyes moved to settle on the person who sat next to her bed, the sleeping woman reminding her that there was at least one good reason for her to still be breathing. Everything that had happened, every ounce of pain she had been through, no matter what happened from that moment, Hanna knew she would have closure and that was all she had ever wanted. She longed for her mom to be able to move on with her life, whether Hanna lived or died, she would have the answers she would need to be able to do so.

The blonde bit down on her lip because it terrified her that she was out of the hell she had been living in for so long, and she was still hating the fact she was alive. Escape plans had turned into attempted suicide plans after a while and she had thought that getting out of there would somehow take all of that pain away, all those dark thoughts would disappear and she would begin moving on with her life. She still wanted to die, she couldn't see a path that would lead to her happiness, to her being able to move on from everything that had happened. The beeping was quicker than it had been, and her chest was uncomfortable, as she shook her head and pulled her hand from the sleeping woman's. Those dark thoughts didn't deserve the comfort of the woman next to her – she had just gotten her back and Hanna was already thinking of leaving her.

She opened her mouth to say sorry as Ashley woke up, a panicked look on her face, but the words wouldn't come out. Hanna hadn't spoken a single word in over a year, she had forgotten how her own voice sounded, and it almost felt as though she had forgotten how to speak. Somehow, her mother understood though and she just moved to stand up, her fingers running through Hanna's hair once again before she told her that everything was going to be okay, she was safe, she was loved, she was going to be okay. And then her lips pressed to her forehead in the loving way that had always made Hanna feel loved, "I'm going to get Caleb," She whispered, "He's been pacing the waiting room since you arrived here... do you want to see him?"

Hanna hesitated before she gave a small nod of her head, and then watched her mother leave the room in a hurry. Ashley gave one last look at her daughter before she headed towards the waiting room where she knew everyone was waiting, "She's okay," She told Caleb, "I just thought that you'd want to see her." He nodded his head but didn't rush off the room as she thought he would, his attention turned to the people he had been waiting for and he frowned, they had been waiting for so long for this moment and it felt too good to be true. All four girls were in the hospital, with a list of injuries longer than he could have ever imagined, he had been sat there since Hanna had arrived in the hospital almost seven hours prior and he had been witness to both relief and pain.

He had watched as Ella sobbed into Byron's arms and he tried to hold back his own tears as he held her as close as he possibly could, Aria had been calling out for them in the room whilst the doctors had tried to see to her injuries and they had been pushed out with the promise they would let them see her as soon as they had assessed her. He had watched as Pam stood alone outside Emily's room, silent tears rolling down her face as she bit her nails, wondering how she was going to tell her daughter that her father had died six months previously. And Peter and Veronica Hastings fought with the doctors to let them back in the room where their screaming, traumatised daughter was.

Alison hadn't spoken a word to anyone since the moment she had gotten there, her eyes stared into space as she pondered over what Emily had kept repeating to her. Toby had been the first to mention it, and he was sat as far away from Ali as he possibly could be when his anger had become too much – almost as though the fact that the person who had tortured the people they loved so much, shared a last name with the blonde, then it was her fault. Charlotte DiLaurentis was the name that had been repeated by Spencer and Emily, whilst Ezra had shaken his head and told him that Aria had just clung to him and told him she was sorry, although he had to tell her over and over again that she had nothing to be sorry for. They had a name, but they still knew nothing about the person who had stolen the four girls from them.

His eyes were red from crying, and his knuckles were bruised from when he had gone outside for a smoke and let the anger completely consume him. She was back but she was broken, he had a name for the person who had hurt her but that was all he had to go on, and the police were still being as hopeless as they always had been. He had accidentally heard the line of questioning that the police were going down when they had approached the doctors who point blank refused to let them into any of the rooms. _Could the wounds have been self-inflicted?_ Was the only question he had heard before he had to leave before he spent the first night he had Hanna back in a police cell for assaulting a police officer. Even though he was exhausted, he fought the urge to sleep because he didn't trust the police not to try and harass Hanna and the doctors not to let them. "Will you keep an eye on everything?" He asked his friends, "Just make sure Tanner doesn't come sniffing around here." Toby waved him off, letting him know that it was obvious they were going to do so without him having to say the words.

Ashley hesitated for a second before she placed her hand on Caleb's shoulder, "I-I thought I would go home and get some rest, pick up some of Hanna's clothes so she feels a little more... herself and then maybe get some of her favourite food. She's on a drip at the moment, the doctors said she's so malnourished and exhausted that they don't want to try her on solid food at the moment but at least we can have some of her snacks ready..." She rambled and Caleb pressed his lips to her cheek as he smiled at her, his hand moving to rub her back before he spoke.

"Don't feel guilty about leaving," He mumbled, "I'll look after her until you get back and you need to be well rested." She only gave a small smile, "I'll bring you dinner." She told him, considering they had been there since close to three that morning and it was almost lunch time. They had become close since Hanna had been missing, an unspoken promise to Hanna that they would look after each other until and beyond her returning to them.

His eyes followed her as she left, just making sure she was okay before he took a deep breath – he felt scared, he had already seen her when she first got to his door but she was covered in dirt, and he had been so focused on getting her to the hospital that he hadn't fully evaluated the injuries that he had been told she had. Injuries that included old broken bones that had never healed properly so the doctors would have to re-break her bones to give them a chance to heal in the way they were meant to, infected cuts, electrical burns and so many more that he couldn't think about right then. He didn't want to leave her alone for too long though, unsure of what would happen because Ashley had told him of the self-inflicted scars that littered her wrists as well.

Slowly, he walked into the room and was relieved to see her eyes open, just staring at the heart rate monitor next to her bed, seemingly fixated with watching the lines leap up with every beat. "Han," He whispered, so not to startle her, smiling at her when she looked at him. "Your mom has just gone to get some of your clothes, she'll be back soon." She didn't reply, he hadn't expected her to, but he moved to sit down next to her bed, "You should sleep, I'll be right here, I won't let anything happen to you." Slowly, his hand moved to rest in hers, smiling when her eyes fell to a close, "I'm never going to let anything happen to you ever again, Hanna. I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Again, thank you for the reviews! I appreciate each and every one of them so much, they each give me the inspiration and the motivation to keep on updating as often as I possibly can, so please keep them coming! The next chapter is going to be Hanna's first day out of hospital and seeing her bedroom for the first time since she was taken all those years ago, there will be plenty more flashbacks, so if you have any ideas on what you would like to see the most, pop those in the reviews! I have a few ideas on the things the girls went through in there but I'm always looking for more imaginative, creative ways, as well.**

 **Disclaimer: The characters and the show belongs to Pretty Little Liars, I own nothing other than the storyline of this story.**

" _The healthy man does not torture others – generally, it is the tortured who turns into torturers." - Carl Jung_

The moment she got home, the older Marin slowly moved up the stairs towards her daughter's bedroom. It hadn't changed at all, she had left everything the way it had been since her daughter had gone missing. Every so often, Ashley would wash her sheets, in the hope Hanna would be home soon enough to be able to sleep in her bed. But she hadn't stepped foot inside that room in over six months, not since the body of a blonde woman had been found not too far from Rosewood and she had convinced herself that it was Hanna. It took the police taking her to the body to prove to her that her daughter was not the poor, murdered girl who had been stolen far too soon.

The worse thing was, Ashley had almost wanted it to be her daughter because she was exhausted. She wanted closure, she needed to have something to say goodbye to; she needed a grave to visit, she needed to bury a body so she wouldn't have to be terrified all the time. The things that ran through her mind sometimes, the most unthinkable things about what was happening to her daughter and her friends. That feeling of sadness when the dead body turned out not to be her lost daughter had finally distinguished any hope she had been clinging to before that. And thus, she had stopped wandering into Hanna's room, she had stopped washing her already clean clothes, she stopped laying on her bed and cuddling the teddy that Hanna had for so long.

Until that moment, her hand slowly pushing open the door as she bit down on her lip and looked around. It was the same as it always had been and she hoped that Hanna would take some comfort in the knowledge that Ashley had never given up on her. She didn't have to know about the past few months, Ashley would never tell her about the dead body, she would never tell her about the hope every single time she ran the police station to see if anything had been found. She would have to dust and clean before Hanna got home but she knew she had at least two weeks until that happened – her daughter's body was broken in both mind and the physical sense and she needed time to heal. She needed the doctors to be looking after her after they re-broke her arm, Hanna's organs were on the verge of shutting down before she had gotten to the hospital from starvation and dehydration, it would take a while to reverse the internal effects of what had happened to her. The doctor had told Ashley that Hanna was lucky, that a week or so later, then the prospects wouldn't have been so positive but all Ashley could think was how it didn't matter. A week or so later wouldn't have made any of the difference on the effects it had on Hanna's mind.

Her daughter was home, but was she really home? Her eyes were different, not only in colour but there was a pain in them that Ashley could never describe. She looked lost, almost as though she was just a child again who needed her mother to make it all better but she never could. She couldn't reverse everything that had happened to her, all those things that made her imagination run wild when the doctor had rattled off a long list of the injuries. The burns, the broken bones, the bruises, the cuts, the scars...

She shook it off and grabbed a bag from in Hanna's cupboard, chucking some of her most comfortable pyjamas in it, before she picked up the cuddly bear from the side and smiled, at least he would be back where he belonged. She tucked him carefully in with the clothes and then grabbed a few photographs that adorned Hanna's bedside tables, deciding to put them in her hospital room as well. Just a few hours to sleep and she decided she would get some flowers and some balloons on the way back to the hospital. Hanna couldn't eat yet but the moment she could, she would remind her daughter of all that favourite food she had missed over the three years. Her baby was coming home, and that was all that mattered for that moment.

At the hospital, Caleb held onto Hanna's hand as she slept, wondering how he could fix it all. The only thing he could truly think of was building a time machine and making sure that Hanna had never been taken in the first place. That was an unrealistic thought, so he knew he had to settle on just being there for Hanna as she cried, or if she ever wanted to talk about it. He had to hold her hand, wrap his arms around her, press his lips to her forehead and wipe away the tears that would fall down her face. He would tell her he loved her and he would make promises that he wasn't sure he could keep. He had told her he would protect her, but he hadn't been able to save her from the monster who had made her life a living hell for so long. He wanted nothing more than to protect her, but the damage had already been done.

The guilt had eaten him up for three years, and even before that. He had fallen in love with Hanna and sometimes, he knew it would have been so much easier if he hadn't – but he would take loving her with all the pain and the fear and all the unknowing, over losing her. Slowly, his lips moved to her hand, and he just stared at the way her eyelashes fluttered, her body was tense, small whimpers left her lips every so often and tiny beads of sweat dripped down her forehead.

He had no idea how long he had been staring at her for, when a knock on the door distracted him and he looked up to see Toby walking into the room with a small frown on his face, "They won't let me see Spencer," He explained, with a small shrug of his shoulders, "Apparently four's a crowd." Caleb just nodded his head in understanding, glad he didn't have to fight a mass amount of Marin family to spend time with Hanna whilst she was in the hospital. "I've waited three years and I get to hold her for all of two seconds..."

There were tears in his eyes and Caleb just moved his head towards the seat next to his, "She'll just be asleep anyway, it's the moment when she wakes up that really matters." He tried to make his best friend feel better but he knew nothing ever could. He wanted to be with Spencer and instead, he was stuck with Caleb as he had been for the past three years. Toby had lost himself in his work, he was building a house for him and Spencer when she got home, and Caleb would sit with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other as he watched him, pretending to offer his help. Instead, the help involved them both talking about the women they had lost, about how they were meant to be struggling in New York or struggling with a long distance relationship right then. They were meant to be worrying about the menial things and instead, their thoughts had been consumed with what was happening to their girlfriends as they spoke.

Being happy never seemed to be an option, because every time they smiled or they laughed, the guilt would creep up and hit them hard. But he could smile right then because they were home, "We have a lifetime to worry about holding them." He finally said, "We finally have the lifetime we've wanted for three years." Toby managed a smile of his own as he nodded his head, and a comfortable silence fell between the two as Caleb kept his eyes on Hanna.

By the time Hanna woke up, Toby was gone and Ashley was back, she could hear the gentle mumbling of her mother and Caleb, as her eyes opened and she glanced at the two of them. Even the slight movement of her head seemed to put them both on high alert and Caleb grinned as he stood up and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "You're awake... you've been asleep for almost twenty-four hours." He told her, and Hanna scrunched up her nose in confusion, wondering when the last time she had slept had been. Sometimes, A liked to play games, keeping them awake all night with the sound of an alarm, sometimes she simply couldn't sleep for fear of what was going to happen if she did close her eyes for even a second.

"I brought you some of your own stuff," Ashley motioned to the cabinet next to her bed, and Hanna's eyes moved to the photographs she could remember sticking up in her own room, she almost smiled as she looked into the happy face of her sixteen year old self, next to a grinning Caleb. They still had A back then but things weren't as terrifying, they would still get the odd break where they could just be normal teenagers but now, even that had been stolen from her. Photographs were just reminders of everything she had lost and everything she would never get back. Her eyes moved around the room, surveying all the balloons and the flowers that seemed to take up much of the room, "I got a little carried away." Her mother explained with a nervous laugh before she moved to the other side of Hanna's bed and ran her fingers through her blonde hair.

"Do you want to know about the other girls?" She whispered, noting the panic in her daughter's eyes, only giving her a small smile when she gave a timid nod of her head, "Okay, Aria had to have surgery, she had some internal bleeding..." Hanna gulped, the images of the baseball bat slamming down on Aria's stomach coming to mind and tears sprung to her eyes that she tried to hold back, she could practically hear the sounds as though she was right back there, watching Emily sob as she hit Aria with the bat, and then Spencer attempted to swing it right back at A. She would never forget the guilt in Emily's eyes, or the pain in Aria's; it seemed to happen too often until the day they all just did what A wanted them to do without questioning it. "But she's okay, and she's going to be okay... she'll be in hospital for a little while longer."

Ashley wasn't sure if she was making things worse, but Hanna had spent three years of her life with those three girls and she needed to know that they were going to be okay as well. "Spencer is actually going home soon," She left out the fact that the reason for that was her refusal to accept any of the help the doctors and the nurses were trying to give her, "I think Veronica and Peter are just going to arrange for someone to go and see her at home and Emily had a severe head injury, they're monitoring it but she was awake last time I spoke to Pam." Hanna only nodded her head, before Caleb gently stroked her cheek, he took a deep breath, his eyes meeting with Ashley's for a second before he looked back down at the girl.

"Spencer said you hadn't spoken in over a year..." He finally said; Toby had managed to get into Spencer's room and she had asked him how each of the girls were doing. He had explained that Hanna hadn't told them anything yet and she had just shrugged her shoulders, _Hanna doesn't say anything. She hasn't for over a year._ Toby had repeated the words back to Caleb and Ashley the moment Veronica had asked him to leave the room, and Caleb had felt his heart drop. Both had just assumed that Hanna's silence was just a response to the shock of being released and being back with the people she loved, they had just assumed that once it had all worn off, she would start speaking again and tell them everything that had happened to her. Instead, it seemed as though they would have to rely on the events being recalled from the people who had been there alongside her. "So uh, we bought you this," He pulled out an iPhone, with a shrug of his shoulders, "You can type anything you want to say to us this way, our numbers are in there and this way, you won't feel any pressure. If the doctors ask you questions, you can just type out your answers..." Hanna took the phone and bit down on her lip, slowly moving to just type 'thank you' to him before she showed him.

"No problem," He responded, moving to sit down as he pulled out his own phone and showed Hanna he would always have it to hand if she ever wanted to talk to him. Ashley gave him a smile; she had known that if Hanna had ever been found, then he would be amazing. He loved that girl more than she thought possible, and she was so thankful that her daughter had found someone who would be there no matter what. Three years he had loyally waited for her, even though Ashley had told him a hundred times over that it was okay if he wanted to find someone else, if he fell in love with another person, but he refused and whilst a part of her had felt sad about all the things he was missing out on, she was also relieved because it meant that no matter how much her own hope dwindled, it meant his hope was still burning bright.

Her eyes wandered back to her silent daughter, and the tears finally fell – Hanna hadn't spoken a word, and it was not a temporary thing. She had stopped talking so long before they had found her, whilst they hadn't given up hope, she could see it in Hanna's eyes – she had given up a long time before she had been let go. And she had heard Spencer screaming, she had seen the way Pam had left Emily's room and collapsed to the ground as she sobbed and she had heard the smashing of something against a wall in Aria's room. All of them were broken, more so than they could have imagined. She almost hoped they had just been on the run from the police, because the alternative had turned out so much more terrifying than she ever believed it could.

 _Hanna's fingers trembled as she slowly walked down the corridor of the underground 'dollhouse' that Charlotte had built for them. Spencer was walking in front of her and Aria and Emily followed behind, all of them in single file, walking in silence towards the door A had told them to be. Her name was Charlotte, it had been revealed to them a few months prior, but Hanna refused to put a name to that. She thought it would be a relief to finally know who it was, to put a face and a name to the person who had tortured them for so long. But instead, Hanna thought the name made them appear to be human, and A was anything other than human. Spencer liked to say her name over and over again as though it gave her some sort of power, and sometimes, she heard Emily whispering it a few times as though she was trying to make sense of it and Aria didn't say much of anything._

 _She frowned when Spencer opened the door and muttered something sarcastic under her breath. There was complete darkness until all four of them were in the room and then it all happened so quickly. Hanna had no idea how A managed to do the things she did with such ease with supposedly no help, Hanna was convinced there was a second person in there with them somewhere, although she was never able to prove it. Somehow, in the darkness, Aria and Emily were gone and until the lights came on, Hanna kept her hand tightly held in Spencer's as silent tears fell down her face. Mona was dead, who was next?_

 _She had no idea how much time had passed until the bright lights came on and she was faced with a chained Emily and Aria in front of them. They were soaked, and Hanna knew what was going to happen next, she had undergone the same treatment many times before. The cattle prod was on the floor and Hanna felt sick when she realised what they were meant to do. A was there, with a smirk on her face, and her arms folded before she told them that they had to choose. Emily or Aria, who was going to get hurt first? Emily or Aria. Or both. The chains were somehow rigged with the amount of electricity needed to cause the kind of pain that made Emily and Aria scream loudly and horrifically. Tears fell down her face as she watched Spencer pick up the weapon of choice for that day, and she turned to look at Hanna as though somehow, the blonde had all the answers._

 _She just shook her head in response. She didn't want to choose between their two best friends, she couldn't choose between them. But it was one or both and she wasn't sure if Aria could take much more. Her tiny body had been beaten so badly just a few days prior because she had tried to set fire to her room with some things she had stolen. Her eyes met with Emily's and she mouthed an apology before she nodded her head towards her and then looked away, covering her ears as she sobbed hard when she heard a scream coming from Emily the moment Spencer pressed it to her skin. They knew the rules by then, keep it there until they were told otherwise. Keep it there until A had enough. Do what they were told because the consequences were severe enough to be feared._

 _The first few times, they hadn't been able to look at each other after they had hurt one another. They had avoided eye contact, they had sobbed apologies, they had felt the guilt running through them and they wished they could do anything other than hurt each other. If hurting themselves was the option, they always would. Now, it was just routine – the guilt was still there, that sick feeling still existed, they hated themselves but it was normal. Hurting each other was normal because they would rather do it to each other than have her lay a hand on them._

 _And then something hit her hard on the back of her head. The screams had finally stopped and she gave into the darkness easily, she could no longer hear Emily's screams for them to stop, she could no longer hear Aria's sobs or Spencer's angry cries, and that was the most welcome relief of all._


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Okay, this is a short chapter in lieu of a very long one that will be following it very shortly! The next chapter is going to involve all of the girls, plenty of flashbacks and more depth in the twist that is featured at the end of this chapter! But let me know what you think, and keep those ideas coming – the ones that have been suggested so far have been amazing and if I use any of them, you will get full credit, of course!**

 **Disclaimer: The characters and the show belongs to Pretty Little Liars, I own nothing other than the storyline of this story.**

" _Interesting that hardly anyone asks how I feel now, not that I'd tell them. I just wonder why nobody cares much about the after – just about the story. Guess they figure it stops there. I wish." - Chevy Stevens_

Going home should have been the best feeling in the world, it should have been a relief, she should have been looking forward to it more than anything. It had been over three years since she had stepped foot in the house that she had grown up in, but she would have done anything for the comfort of her hospital bed right then. Caleb was in front of her, his hand on the door to her bedroom before he pushed it open, he had this huge smile on her face as though he expected her to be happy but the moment her foot stepped over that threshold, she realised she couldn't do it.

Something inside her broke. Shattered more than it already was as her eyes glanced over at her bedroom. Only, it wasn't _her_ bedroom anymore, it was a carbon copy of the room she had spent three years of hell in. The wallpaper was the same, every piece of furniture was the exact same, A had managed to get everything right – it made Hanna wonder how long they had spent in her bedroom. What had A touched? How did they get into her room so many times? Enough times to know where everything was, how everything looked...

Caleb didn't stop her when she first moved forward, it was as though he was waiting for the relief to show on her face. She didn't know how she looked right then, she felt as though she was in some sort of haze, and then flashes of her time in the dollhouse completely took over.

 _Hanna's hands slammed on the door as she screamed for someone to let her out, she cried for her mom, for Caleb, for her friends; her hands coming down on the door each time until she slipped down onto the floor with a broken sob. "Let me out," She repeated, over and over again, her breathing heavy and the tears continued to fall, it was only the first night and she had no idea what was going to happen in the time that would follow. The blonde could hear her best friends not too far from her, each of them slamming on their own doors, each terrified because none of them had no idea about what was going to happen to them next._

It took a moment to jolt herself out of the memory of that first night and she gulped, slowly walking over to the wall, her fingers glazing along the wallpaper as she bit down on her lip with a frown. She could remember the first night, she had been so scared but it was nothing in comparison to what was going to follow. That first night, she had been naïve, she had clung to hope for so long but then, the worst thing that A had done to them was lock them in a room for the night. She would have taken that over everything that had followed, being locked in that room was _safe_ in comparison to the things that could happen outside that room. Caleb spoke, but she felt as though she was in a bubble, floating far from him and from the house that was meant to make her feel safe again. She was there, but she didn't truly feel as though she existed in the present.

 _Her hands slammed over her ears when the alarm sounded, she had just been drifting off into an uneasy sleep when A had decided to set the alarm off again. Today's punishment was lack of sleep; sleep deprived, she felt sick with exhaustion, she wanted to curl up in a ball and just sleep for as long as she possibly could. Preferably she would wake up and she would be back home. The alarm continued, and Hanna let out a frustrated scream before she crawled over to the closet and hid inside it. She kept her hands over her ears and closed her eyes as tightly as she possibly could, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"_

Caleb shouting her name broke her from that memory, and she realised she had been tearing at the wallpaper. Her nails scratched at the wall, as she tried to tear the paper off, she wanted it gone. This wasn't the bedroom she had spent a month planning and then over a week decorating, she had taken pride in the room, she had loved it. She had even showed it off. But now she wanted it gone, it was tainted, just like her. Her wrist was in a cast but she ignored the pain that soared through it as she continued to rip at the paper. She just shook her head, she couldn't express how she felt in words but she just wanted Caleb to know that she wanted it all gone. He had to understand that it all had to go.

Their eyes met when she looked up, and she half-expected him to grab her and tell her it was all going to be okay. She couldn't even gather the words to tell him that nothing would ever be okay again, she was broken. And this wasn't the kind of broken that could be fixed by him loving her, it wasn't the kind of broken that would heal with every kiss and every hug. Instead, he just nodded his head and moved next to her, his own hands moving to remove the wallpaper before he gave her a small smile. When Ashley walked in a few moments later, a confused expression on her face, he only shrugged his shoulders, "I think Hanna wants to redecorate." He told her, and that was that. The three of them worked in silence, removing everything from her room that Hanna pointed to – everything except the closet because that was her safety. Even in that place, she had been safe there.

It didn't occur to Hanna until later that night that Caleb and Ashley had understood because they had seen the crime scene photographs; Spencer had managed to recount every single movement she had made from A's lair to Toby's house. Spencer had been the only one of them clever enough to leave a trail, although Hanna sometimes wished she hadn't – she didn't want anyone to see the hell they had been through. By then, after two weeks in the hospital, forensics would have been through there, the police would have been alongside them, photographs would have been taken, the body of Mona would have been found and...

She shook it off. She was still in denial about what they had done but she had seen the look on mother's face when the police had told her what they had found when they got to the place in the woods. The bunker turned hell. A hadn't let them go, A was never going to let them go; the piece of paper Hanna had curled in her hand was just the first thing she had grabbed from the side with Caleb's name on it. They would still be there now if they hadn't taken it into their own hands. She shook those thoughts off though and instead, her eyes glanced around at the empty room and she felt a momentary satisfaction. She could start over, this didn't have to be the same room, but still, A had walked on the floor, A had touched the walls, A had breathed the same air.

Slowly, she sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees and just sat there in silence as her eyes fell to a close. She was tired but she couldn't sleep, she was hungry but she couldn't eat, she was lonely but she couldn't be around anyone. She missed the girls but she couldn't see them because seeing them hurt more than it should have. Caleb had left to take everything to a charity shop, and her mom had moved downstairs to make them something to eat for when he came back. She didn't even hear the older Marin come up behind her until the red head was sitting next to her, a nervous smile on her face before she slowly reached to wrap an arm around her. Her body froze at the contact for a second, before she took a deep breath and told herself that it was just her mother, so slowly, her head moved to rest on the woman's shoulder.

"I love you so much," Ashley whispered, moving to press her lips to Hanna's hair, "I'm so glad you're home... we can do whatever you want with this room. We can go shopping, you can buy anything you want..." Hanna just gave her a small smile, but didn't say anything in response – Ashley was getting used to the silence now but it didn't make it hurt any less. She missed the sound of the blonde's voice; she longed to hear a sarcastic comment, she missed giving her daughter a look that told her to shut up before she dug herself into any deeper of a hole than she already had. Instead, she was looking at her daughter, silently begging her to just say something, anything. She wanted her to scream, she wanted her to tell her she hated her for not finding her, she would take anything over the silence.

The rest of the night passed in silence, Caleb and Ashley just looked at each other as Hanna pushed the food around the plate instead of making a single move to raise the fork to her mouth. They didn't say a word when Hanna insisted on walking around the house to do a security check, her fingers moving over all the window locks and the doors, making sure everything was closed and everything was locked. Every single door, every window, in every single room that A could have gone through to get her. Her fingers trembled as she watched over Ashley's shoulder as she made sure she set the alarm properly before they made their way up the stairs.

She tried to do everything she was supposed to do, which included slowly moving to lay down on the mattress that Caleb had pulled into her room, saying it would have to do until they bought her the best bed they could find. He moved next to her, and his arm wrapped around her; she wanted to push him off more than anything. She wasn't used to having someone there whist she slept, she felt as though she was suffocating even with the lose grip he had on her. Hanna closed her eyes and forced herself to move her head to rest on his chest, because that was what she was supposed to do, right? She was meant to be taking comfort in his touches, Hanna wanted to be able to hold onto her boyfriend and thank him for not giving up on her. She wanted to tell him she loved him, that there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think about him but instead, what she really wanted was to be left alone. Normality would have been falling into Caleb's arms and listening to him telling her everything was going to be okay, but nothing was normal.

Hanna pretended to sleep, until Caleb's breathing steadied and his grip loosened – he wasn't a heavy sleeper, he never had been, so she was careful in her moving out of his grasp. Each second she had laid there, her chest felt as though it was being crushed. Had she checked the bathroom window? She couldn't remember. And maybe there was something wrong with her bedroom window, A had to have gotten into her bedroom all those years ago somehow. With trembling fingers, she moved over to the window and peaked out – she had insisted on keeping the bedroom light on because the thought of sleeping in the dark made her feel sick. Slowly, her fingers moved over the lock and she bit down on her lip, it seemed secure, but she couldn't be sure.

Quietly, she walked over to the closet, sliding inside, ensuring she could see the window and the door from where she was. Her heart thumped against her chest, and her arms wrapped around her knees as her chin settled on her knees; she was tired but she was so paranoid that A was going to find her, take her back to that place that still haunted her dreams. But she had nothing to be scared of, her body shook for no reason, her eyes darted around the dimly lit room pointlessly, A wasn't going to get her. A wasn't going to get any of them because A was dead.

And they had killed her.

 _She was running. Her bare feet hit the ground, branches slammed against her body but she carried on running. She had just grabbed a piece of paper with Caleb's name on it and stared at the address for a few moments before she recognised it as the apartment building so close to the Brew; she had no idea where they were or how long it would take them to get home but if they ran, maybe they would find their way back to Rosewood. Her breathing was heavy, and she was so tired but she couldn't stop, she could hear Aria behind her and she could see Emily and Spencer right in front of her. None of them looked at each other, none of them spoke, and no one stopped until they realised where they were._

 _Three years and they had been practically in Rosewood the entire time. The woods that their families had probably walked in to try and find them a thousand times over. Why couldn't they have come across the underground bunker? She had no idea how long they had been running, but to know she had been so close to Caleb and her mother this entire time made her feel sick. Maybe they had walked over where they were, maybe they had called out their names so close by._

 _Stepping into town, they started to walk and Spencer's hand grabbed onto Hanna's, who took Emily's hand in her own, who did the same to Aria. They had been home the entire time and hadn't even known it. "They're going to separate us, and we might not see each other for a while but..." Spencer gave them all a smile smile, tears in her eyes, "We need to protect each other, be careful with what you tell them, no one can be trusted." Hanna nodded her head in response, and so did the other two – no one could be trusted._


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! This chapter will have many trigger warnings as we start to get into the depths of what happened to them in the dollhouse.**

 **Trigger warning - there are mentions of attempted suicide, self-harm and violence in this chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: The characters and the show belongs to Pretty Little Liars, I own nothing other than the storyline of this story.**

" _I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they'll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person." - Chevy Stevens_

Hanna sat on the bathroom floor, staring down at the razor blade she held in her hand, her eyes watered, the shower was running behind her and she nibbled down on her bottom lip. Caleb and her mother would be standing in her bedroom, painting the walls, having thought she was taking an extremely long shower but instead, she had spent the past twenty minutes sitting there, wondering if she could try it again. Even though she was free from that place, she didn't feel truly free. She slept in the closet, she had nightmares every single night, she hated the dark, she flinched every single time someone touched her and worst of all, she had yet to find her voice.

A part of her had always just assumed that it was temporary – she would leave that place behind and she would be able to talk about it. She would tell Caleb she loved him, she would tell her mom that she missed her, she would be able to thank her friends for their patience and their love over the past three years and she would be able to tell Mona's mother how sorry she was but that she had been holding Mona whilst she took her last breath. She sniffed, holding back the tears as the memory overtook her – it was the year anniversary and A wanted to celebrate it in style. Only, that 'celebration' had ended with Hanna holding a bleeding, pale, terrified Mona as she asked if she truly forgave her. Hanna's answer had been obvious, her last words to her friend had been that she had forgiven her completely and utterly for everything she had done. And then she thanked her, for being there when Alison had 'died' and for being the best friend Hefty Hanna had needed.

Hanna wanted to be able to offer some sort of comfort to the woman she had yet to see, she wanted to be able to comfort those around her but instead, she was stuck in her own silent world with nothing but her memories. She wondered if her best friends were talking about everything that had happened to them in there – if Aria had spoken to her parents about the time she had set fire to her own bedroom and horrifically burned her own arm in an attempt to escape (or kill herself, and all of them, Hanna wasn't too sure which, although Aria insisted it was an escape plan), had Spencer told Toby how she had jumped from a great height and broken her leg once, because A had told her to jump down the 'hole' or Toby would end up in hospital... or worse? Had Emily cried in her mom's arms about how A had told them that she was responsible for Emily's father's death? They had even shown her the newspaper clipping announcing the date of his funeral, Emily had been sick for days afterwards, the girls thought she was going to die. She had been clammy, pale, her body had shook and she committed anything up they tried to give her. Emily was almost the second person they lost in that place.

She shook those thoughts off as she pressed the blade against her skin, a shivering sigh of relief falling from her lips before she smiled. Pain. She had become accustomed to pain in the past few years, it was almost a welcome feeling when she felt it again. These days, it was all she could feel. Her eyes stared at the blood that fell from her arm and at the sound of footsteps, she scurried up, jumping into the shower and closing the curtains just in time for the door to open. Caleb had insisted that she not lock the door in fear that she would collapse or something – the constant reminders that she hadn't eaten repeated to her over and over again until she was tired of hearing all about how much she seemed to be letting Caleb and her mother down since she had gotten back. "Are you okay?" She heard his voice and she knew it should have broken her heart to hear just how concerned he was, she could practically hear the fear in his voice. Instead, it was easy to shrug off as her eyes stared down at the blood that dripped down onto the bottom of the tub.

She wondered if he had forgotten that she couldn't, _wouldn't_ speak and was waiting for her to answer, so after a few moments of silence between them, she slightly opened the shower curtain and looked at him, forcing a smile on her face before he nodded his head and walked back out of the door. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was, that she was letting him down still, but he was gone and she would never be able to get those words out.

 _Hanna moved slowly towards the other side of the room, slowly bending down when no one was looking at her to pick up a piece of glass from the offending object that had just been thrown at them. She couldn't wipe the smile from her face when she felt the sharp piece in the palm of her hand, biting down on her bottom lip before she stood back up and looked at her arguing friends across from her. Spencer had just thrown a mirror across the room in a sudden fit of anger and Emily was trying to calm her down, whilst Aria screamed right back at her. Mona had just died, Hanna and Aria were starting to lose all hope, but Emily still had some left and Spencer... well, she was stubborn. Hanna had bitterly suggested their only way out was a mass suicide, and had managed to start a screaming match between them all without even being involved herself. She had found a weapon she could use, and not even on A, but on herself._

 _An alarm sounded, signalling that it was time for them to go back to their room and none of them argued. The tension was obvious, they couldn't wait to get away from each other, and Hanna couldn't wait to get into her bedroom and end the entire thing. Once she got to her 'bedroom' door, she looked at all her friends and smiled at them, hoping they would forgive her for being so weak. She had given up a long time ago though, and she was entirely certain there was no other way out. The minute the lights went out, and she was safe in her closet, it was time to put the plan into action. The first of many attempts that ended in complete failure and further punishment._

Hanna stared at her reflection in the mirror, a frown on her face; she had been so certain that her best friends would hate her for being so willing to leave them but instead, they had told her they understood and just held her when she cried. No one mentioned it again, not when it happened a second time, or a third time, or a fourth... and no one commented when Emily tried, when Aria tried and when Spencer tried. Their efforts to leave that place on their own accord were futile, pointless, endless. They tried and they tried and they tried, but nothing worked.

Only now they were out, and she still wanted to die. She wasn't certain if that was irony, or just a tragedy. She was free but she felt anything other than free, she was back home with the people she loved but she just wanted to be back in the dollhouse where she was justified in her sadness and her anger. She didn't even want to be alive, and there was no one there who would get to her in time to stop her. There was no one there who wanted to control her completely, and stop her from making a single move they would disapprove of. She could die and people would be angry, they would be sad but they would move on. Suicide was final, there would be no wondering, nothing unknown... people would move on.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Ashley, who walked into the bathroom after realising her daughter had been gone for longer than an hour. Just seeing her standing there, staring at herself in the mirror broke her heart, but she forced a smile anyway and walked over to her. "Hanna?" She spoke before she rested a hand on her back, tears in her eyes every single time when her daughter initially flinched from even the gentlest of touches. "You've been a long time, do you need help?"

Her daughter looked so helpless, but Hanna just shrugged her shoulders before she wrapped the towel around herself a little tighter. The cut on her arm suddenly stung, and it took her a second to realise it was because her mom's fingers were running over it, her fingers curled around her wrist as she stared down at the fresh wound that had marred her daughter's already damaged skin. She gulped, but yanked her arm away, glad when Ashley didn't ask any questions that Hanna knew she wouldn't be able to answer. Instead, she made quick work of grabbing the first aid kit – Hanna could pretend as though she didn't see the tears that Ashley quickly tried to wipe away before she turned back to Hanna and then busied herself with covering the newest imperfection. It would have greatly concerned Hanna at some point, she had been so vain but now it was just something else she could stare at and remember.

 _First it was a slap across her face._

 _Then she felt a kick to her side but still her eyes remained closed._

 _The third thing was something covering her face before she found herself gasping for air when water was being poured over her face. She couldn't breathe, she felt as though she was drowning but it was different, her world was completely dark when she dared to open her eyes until the wash cloth was ripped from her face and she was staring into the eyes of the person who was their very own torturer. "I decide when you die." She heard, before her face was once again covered and water was being poured, this time for longer, and each passing second, breathing seemed to become harder. A wasn't going to let her die of her own accord, A was going to kill her but Hanna had no idea when. Control? What the hell was that meant to be? She hadn't felt it for years._

 _When it was taken away for the third time, she was pushed forward so she could gasp for air, coughing and spluttering up water. She let out a sob, her eyes closed tightly, waiting for the next bucket of water to be poured over her. Only it never came, instead, came the confusing, loving touch from the person who seemed to both hate and love them so much – her hand gently stroked her cheek and then moved to tuck her hair behind her ears, "You're my doll, you're mine... you're not leaving until I let you."_

Hanna couldn't breathe, she felt as though she was right back where she had been around a year and a half before. There was a crushing pain on her chest, making it hard to breathe, until she felt her mother's arms wrap around her, and push Hanna's head onto her chest. Her eyes closed, and she listened to the way her heart was beating, and felt the way her chest would rise and fall, trying to force her own breathing to match hers. She wanted to apologise, she wanted to say so much but the words would never come. Maybe she would never speak again, maybe she would never be able to convey how she really felt to the people who had waited for her and who loved her.

Time seemed to pass slowly, but at the same time, it all blurred into one. Hanna felt as though sometimes, she could be sitting there with Caleb and somehow, she'd be back in the closet the moment she blinked her eyes and it was night time again, and she was just watching him sleep whilst she tried to stop herself from having nightmares. He knew, by now, that she didn't sleep on the mattress with him, but he didn't push her to either – she wondered if the two of them were taking lessons or something in how to deal with traumatised people because they seemed so understanding, patient, loving. It seemed as though one minute she had been listening to her mom's heart beating and the next, she was in her bedroom staring at the newly painted walls after her mom had helped her to get dressed. As she looked around the room, she thought of the three people she had once been so willing to leave behind but now, it felt as though a huge part of herself was missing. She hadn't even spoken to them in so long, after spending three years of her life with them, not seeing them for almost three weeks seemed impossible.

Hanna pulled out her phone and bit down on her lip as she sent a text to her mom; _I need Spencer, can I go?_ She never got any texts back, it was almost as though they were being subtle in their attempts to try and get her to talk but nothing ever worked. Ashley nodded her head, asking her if she wanted her to take her but Hanna shook her head quickly, she needed to walk, she needed to feel the fresh air against her face and Spencer's house wasn't too far from her. The media had grown bored by Hanna's non-compliance in their constant questions and Rosewood was such a small place, the media would never get away with hiding in the bushes. But still, it was the first time she had been out of the house on her own, and the moment she had stepped onto the pavement, she wondered if she had made the right decision as she looked back at her house. One foot in front of the other, that was all she needed to do – and it was something she repeated to herself as she walked a familiar path to Spencer's house. It was a journey she had not made in such a long time but one she had made far too many times in the past.

Rosewood hadn't changed, although she had expected it to – she had changed so much, it only seemed fitting that her surroundings should undergo the same. Her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes skittish, her body tense. She had meant to take it all in, to walk slowly, but instead she found herself walking as quickly as her exhausted body could manage; the sooner she made it to Spencer's house the better. And then there it was, the house she hadn't seen in years. She prayed and hoped that Spencer was still there, that her parents hadn't whisked her as far from Rosewood as she possibly could be. She needed to see her best friend, she needed to feel normal for a moment – Spencer was one of the people who was going through the exact same thing as she was, and thus, she understood. Caleb and Ashley tried but they couldn't understand, they hadn't been there, they hadn't seen the things they had. They had been through so much but it would never be the same; she could see it in their eyes, the pain and the fear of the unknown things that had happened to her and her friends that they would never know about. But then Spencer's eyes reflected her own, along with Aria's and Emily's, things they would never tell anyone else in order to protect themselves. Some of the things that had happened in there were best to be kept a secret – the deaths they were responsible for whilst they were in there, the things they had done to themselves, to each other.

She had to knock on the door before she changed her mind, and she took a step back the moment Melissa opened the door. "Can I help you?" This was when her silence got hard, her hand shook and she opened her mouth, before she took a deep breath and took out her phone, typing out the name of the person she was there to see with a question mark. The older of the Hastings siblings just shrugged her shoulders and opened the door a little further so Hanna would follow her in, "She's in the sitting room." Hanna just nodded her head and moved in that direction, smiling when she saw Spencer sitting there with a book on her lap. Only, Spencer's concentration proved a problem because Hanna didn't want to startle her by just approaching her, she knew how that felt.

"Oh, Hanna!" She looked up to see Veronica Hastings standing in the kitchen and it was enough to make Spencer jump up and run over to her best friend. Neither of them had to say a word to each other as their arms wrapped around the other and their eyes fell to a close; this was what true safety felt like. She knew Caleb and her mom would do anything in their power to protect her but Spencer, Aria and Emily were the only three people who made her feel as though she was going to be okay. Even if she knew that wasn't true.

They stayed like that for a few moments, before Spencer pulled back and looked at Hanna, "Not a word, huh?" She slightly teased, but Hanna just shook her head and bit down on her lip, before her friend took her hand and told her mom she would be upstairs. Once they got to her room, Hanna was relieved to find it very much in the same state as her own had been – the smell of fresh paint filled the air, and the very little furnishing that was in the room appeared to be brand new. It made her feel normal to know that someone else had felt the exact same way as she had about the cell they had been forced into. Her eyebrow raised though at the choice of colour Spencer had gone with – a horrid, bright yellow. The look on her face must have said it all, because when the brunette moved to sit on her bed she just let out an awkward laugh, "I wanted something that would make me smile, I guess. After staring at those dreary, awful walls for so long... I needed something bright."

Hanna nodded her head in understanding, taking out her phone and typing out a message to Spencer; _I went for all black,_ she showed her with a small smirk and Spencer let out a laugh. They all had different ways of coping with everything; they had been different in the dollhouse, they had found their own ways to cope with the trauma of being there and now, they were each finding their own ways to cope with being home and locked inside a world of people who had no clue what they had gone through. "Typical," Was all she said, smiling when Hanna joined her on the bed as they had done a hundred times before when Charlotte was feeling nice and would allow them to spend time together. Hanna felt most comfortable around Spencer, although she couldn't explain why. Emily was more on edge than she was and Aria cried more than she did, but Spencer was... comfortable.

She moved to lay on her side and Spencer wrapped her arms around her, and Hanna's hands rested on her hands, "Do you think about any of the good times?" Spencer whispered, and Hanna bit down on her lip, "I mean, I know they weren't truly good times but there were times we did smile. Moments we laughed, seconds that we forgot where we were... do you think about the good times, too? Because sometimes, I wonder if maybe we were just better off there, you know? We all knew what was going to happen, we didn't have to look into the eyes of people who tried to understand but never could, we were all on the same page. We didn't have to see a therapist, we didn't have to be forced to heal, we didn't have to see our names all over the internet and the pages of newspaper..." She sighed and hid her face in Hanna's hair as the blonde just listened, "Maybe we don't have good memories but at least we were..." Even Spencer couldn't think of the word but she knew what she meant, inside the walls of the dollhouse, they didn't have to pretend to be anything other than terrified, they could fight and they could scream and no one would look at them as though they were crazy. "I have nightmares... but I barely sleep now, I woke everyone in the house up screaming once and I can still remember the looks on their faces, so I try not to sleep too much, or not long enough to enter a dream state at least."

Hanna turned to face her best friend, her fingers moving over her cheek as she just listened to Spencer talk, wondering if she had spoken to anyone else about this. At further examination, she could tell the lack of sleep was deeply effecting her, but she wasn't one to talk. The nightmares didn't matter when they were in their hell, their screams would echo the empty hallways every single night but no one would comment. Now, they had people who would be greatly effected by the sounds of the people they loved having a horrific nightmare. Their foreheads pressed together, and tears fell down their face, in a silent understanding of everything they had gone through.

A few moments passed before Spencer spoke again, and their eyes met in an understanding that only two other people would be a part of, "Do you still want to kill yourself?" Hanna only gave her a small nod of her head and a grimace that followed, "Yeah, me too." Spencer mumbled, before a bitter laugh followed – it had gotten to a point that she had thought, even if they had escaped, they were broken beyond repair.

 _It had been an accident. Or rather, an unplanned incident. Hanna still held the baseball bat in her hands. It had been three years, and over the years, A had become increasingly comfortable with giving them weapons and being in the same room as them with the confidence that none of them would do anything. It had been Hanna's turn to whack Spencer as hard as she could but already, she had forgotten what Spencer was meant to have done, if she had even done anything. Once, it had been actions led to consequences but now it just seemed to be a sick enjoyment. Emily had been first, and then Aria, and then Spencer was encouraging Hanna to do what she needed to do. They should have been used to dolling out punishments to each other by now, she had hit Spencer before and Spencer had hit her before and they had done worse things. But there was something different about that moment._

 _Spencer looked so... done. As though she didn't care what happened to her anymore, and if Spencer had given up, Hanna knew that there was nothing else that could be done. She had raised the bat, looked Spencer in the eye before she swung it around completely and smacked the blonde bitch as hard as she possibly could. First in the side and then, when she was unbalanced enough, in the head. Blood splattered on her, and around the room, the blood of the person she hated._

 _Spencer's calling of her name snapped her out of it, and she dropped the bat to move to unchain her best friend. Aria was just staring, Emily was in the corner of the room rocking herself back and forth, repeating to herself that it was over but Spencer... she walked over to what Hanna presumed to be the dead body of the person they all loathed. Slowly, the brunette bent down and pressed her fingers to A's neck, "She's not dead." She announced, slowly turning Charlotte over as she stared down at her. Hanna had no idea what Spencer was going to do, until her best friends hand was over Charlotte's mouth and then her fingers pressed against her nose._

 _No one said a word as Charlotte's body shook. Emily stood up and Aria stopped crying, their eyes all focused on Spencer, taking in what was happening. What Hanna had started and Spencer had finished. She was gone, it was over, they were free._

Hanna's hands ran through Spencer's hair, realising her attachment to her best friend over the other two who had been through the same things they had, was because of their shared involvement in the death of another human being, which was something no one else, not even Aria and Emily, would be able to share with them.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thank you for all the amazing reviews! To all those who wished for more of Caleb smoking; I have to agree and thus, there is some more of that in this chapter. Please review and let me know what you think and if anyone has any wonderfully dark ideas to come into the future!**

" _The thing, this terrible thing, didn't just happen to you. It happened to everyone who cares about you but it didn't just stop there, it happened to the whole town – even women across the country. Lots of people's lives have been changed, not just yours." - Chevy Stevens_

Caleb slowly moved to sit down, lighting his cigarette with a small sigh; he was exhausted, more than he ever thought possible. He had Hanna back with him but he was terrified of losing her all over again, and so, when she would fall asleep in his arms, he would open his eyes and stare at her. His arms would wrap tightly around her and he would take in the fact that she was there, and she was with him. Even when she would pull herself from what she thought to be his sleeping arms, he would watch her with half-open eyes as she walked over to the closet. He could barely sleep for fear that he would wake up and she would be back with the person who had tortured her.

But then he remembered what the police had told him, the crime scene photographs he had accidentally seen when he hacked into the police computer database to see if he could get a glimpse of what his girlfriend had gotten through. The person who was responsible for the past three years of complete pain, the person who had hurt his girlfriend in ways he could only imagine, who had stolen her from him, was gone. She was never going to come back, because he had seen the way in which the girls had left him and he couldn't help but wonder if Hanna had played a part in the way in which Charlotte ended up.

He shook his head at the thought, he didn't care if she had been the person to cause that large wound, he didn't care if she had done awful things in there because after the things he had seen, and the things he had been told by Toby, he wouldn't blame her. His thoughts were disturbed when Ashley opened the door and stepped outside, with his immediate thought going to how Hanna shouldn't be left alone in the house. The panic must have been obvious on his face because Ashley gave a small shake of her head, "She's just in the kitchen... staring down at a piece of toast.." With a frown, she sat across from the man, her eyes glancing towards the glass doors that separated them from where Hanna was sitting as Caleb took a drag of his cigarette.

"You shouldn't smoke..." She spoke, their eyes meeting for just a second before he nodded towards the glass of wine in her hand, "You shouldn't drink," He counter argued with a small smirk on his face before he lifted the cigarette back to his lips, inhaling the smoke that somehow made everything a little better, if it was at all possible. His heart was breaking, but his bad habits helped him deal with that. Finally, Ashley moved a little closer to him, her voice getting quieter, "I think... maybe, you should stay here... I know you have your own apartment and I know... but I think you should stay here with her, with me... with us. I don't know how to do this alone, Caleb and..."

There were tears in her eyes, and Caleb moved out to grip onto Ashley's hand with a smile on his face, "I've already given up the lease on my apartment, I'm going to be with the two of you every single step of that way. No matter what it takes..." He could see the relief on the mother's face and she gave his hand a small squeeze before their heads looked up at the sound of the door opening. His eyes met with Hanna's as Ashley stood up and pressed her lips to the side of her daughter's head, "I'm going to run you a bath," She told the blonde, who only nodded her head and took another step outside, a little closer to Caleb.

He hated how she hesitated when it came to moving towards him, and he loathed how he did the same for fear of scaring her. It had been a month since she had gotten home and things hadn't improved; she went to therapy but she still hadn't spoken a word. She spent most of her time drawing or writing, or staring into space, leaving Caleb to wonder what she was thinking about. The most affection she had shown him was when she rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes, allowing herself just a moment of comfort before she thought he was asleep and she would pull away to the only place he supposed she could feel safe – the closet.

She surprised him though, when she moved a little closer to him and, without a word, as he had expected, her tiny body moved to sit on his lap. He didn't hesitate to move his cigarette from one hand to the other so he could wrap an arm around her; his lips pressed against her hair and then he mentioned to the half smoked cigarette, "Do you want me to put it out?" He asked, biting down on his lip when she shook her head and instead, moved her face to snuggle into his neck as her eyes closed. He could see the curiosity in his eyes as he took just one more drag and then put it out in the ashtray Ashley had so kindly put out there for him when she realised his habit wasn't going to disappear the moment Hanna returned to him.

Hanna's hand moved to his chest, her fingers wrapped around the fabric of his shirt as she bit down on her lip. They didn't have to talk, and she liked the way he didn't force her to communicate what she went through and how she felt. She took a deep, shaking breath and then tilted her head to look up at him, and their eyes met when he looked down at her to run his fingers through her hair. He smelt like cigarette smoke and beer but she didn't mind – it wasn't the Caleb smell she had been used to before she left but they had both changed. She could see a pain and sadness in his eyes that hadn't been there before and she wondered if he could see the same in her own.

Slowly, her fingers danced along his cheekbones, before she lifted her head slightly to press their lips together. It was the first kiss they had shared in over three years, and it was everything he had hoped it would be and so much more. Both of them had imagined the moment for so long, with her fingers pressed gently against his face and their lips slowly moved against each others. He tasted like cigarette smoke and beer as well, but again, Hanna didn't mind. It was different, but everything was different and somehow, it all seemed fitting. When they pulled back, his nose nudged against hers and he had a huge smile on his face, "I love you," He whispered, and she pulled back slightly to show him her hand where she had written 'I love you, too' on there before she had gone out there. With a laugh, Caleb shook his head and pulled her impossibly closer to him as his eyes closed, whilst he rested his head on top of hers and just breathed her in. She was intoxicating, he could barely breathe when she was around him. Despite everything she had been through, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

They stayed that way for half an hour, until Ashley popped her head outside and gave him a huge smile when she saw the way her daughter was holding onto the man who had waited for her. The older Marin had no clue what she would have done without the young man over the past few years, she had been so sick with worry that she had ended up in hospital but he had kept looking, he had kept updating her, he had promised her he wouldn't give up on the person they had both missed so much. "It's cold out... do you want me or Caleb to help you in the bath?" She asked her daughter, who slowly stood up from her place on Caleb's life and looked between the two before she outstretched her hand for Caleb with a small smile.

Ashley didn't miss the surprise, or the relief on his face – it was just a small matter but one Hanna had avoided with him up until that moment. She hid her body as much as she possibly could from the man, but Ashley had seen the full horror that Charlotte had reigned down on her daughter. She had seen the scars that had made her vomit the first time she had stared at what had happened to her daughter's once perfect body. There were burn like scars that covered her upper body, what looked like an old stab wound on her stomach, her ribs jutted out but the most disturbing were the long, angry scars on her wrists because Ashley knew what that had meant. Maybe she was relieved that she didn't have to absent-mindedly count the scars, thinking up ways Hanna could have gotten them. Her imagination was playing havoc, to the point where it left her waking up every single night from the next awful nightmare where she had seen Hanna going through the most hideous things.

With his hand in hers, Caleb led Hanna up towards the bathroom, sharing a look with Ashley that only caused the fear to rise within him. He had been curious, and he had read the hospital reports and the police reports, Toby had met with him once to secretly tell him about some of the 'tools' and the rooms they had found in that place. And since that moment, Caleb's mind had been running wild, panicking whenever he caught a glimpse of the marks that Charlotte had left behind on the love of his life. She was so amazing, she would never hurt anyone and she hadn't deserved to go through anything that she had in the past three years. How he longed to take every second of pain that she had felt, so she would never have to feel it. He would take it one hundred times over so she would feel nothing but all the happiness, the care and the love that she deserved.

Once they had gotten into the bathroom and he had closed the door behind them, her hand dropped from his and he took a deep breath when she slowly pulled her top over her head. The marks on her back made his stomach flip, and he swore he would have murdered Charlotte with his own bare hands had someone not done the job for him. He wanted to thank whichever of the girls who had done what he couldn't. His fists clenched, his nails digging into the palm of her hand as he just stared ahead of him, at the broken girl who stood there looking more vulnerable than he had ever seen her. He had seen Hanna broken before, but this was something else entirely; the girl he knew was shattered beyond belief and Caleb was going to do everything he possibly could to pick up every piece and put her back together as much as he could but he knew he wouldn't be able to do it alone. She'd have to help him, he just didn't know to make her fight for it though.

He didn't even think about his movements as he took a large step to close the distance between them, his fingers moving over a particularly harsh scar that almost covered the entire length of his back, as he swallowed the bile that crept up his throat. For the first time, she didn't flinch from his unexpected touch and instead, she turned to look at him, a nervous look on her face, and a fear in her eyes he never wanted to see, "You're beautiful," He whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead, and then her nose, before he gently kissed her lips with a small smile on his face. There were tears dancing in her eyes, but the shadow of a smile on her lips and the blush on her cheeks was enough to make his heart skip a beat.

Slowly, his fingers moved over the circular scar on her chest, his forehead coming to rest on hers; he wanted to know every single story of how she had gotten every scar on her perfect body. He wanted her to tell him what she had gone through and how she had felt, he wanted to know anything and everything there was to know about the past three years but he knew he had to be patient. Just as he went to pull back, Hanna gripped onto his shirt and gave it a gentle tug, her eyes looking into his with a desperation he understood without a word needing to pass between them. She glanced at the bath, and gave his shirt another tug and he smiled, "You want me to join you?" He asked, the huge grin on his face when he nodded would have been embarrassing had it not been for the amount of trust it took for her allow him to sit in the bath with her. A whole month had passed since he had gotten her back but in one day, this was the closest they had been and he hoped it would only be the beginning of this new chapter of their story.

It didn't take him long to get undressed, and he helped her into the bath after wrapping up the cast on her wrist with the plastic bag Ashley had prepared for them. He waited for her to settle down into the warm water before he took a deep breath and sat behind her, his hand moving through her hair to sweep it to one side over her shoulder so he could press his lips to the back of her neck. There was nothing sexual about his body being pressed against hers, but instead, it was something comforting and something he needed to remind him that she was real, and what they had was real enough to withstand everything they had both been through over the past few years.

It was silent but he didn't mind as he just gently took the cloth from the side and gently washed her back, mindful of the wounds that remained there. Every so often, his lips would press gently against her exposed skin and he would feel her shiver beneath him. Once he had washed her hair, his arms wrapped around her and she leaned back, her head resting against his chest. He couldn't stop the way in which his lips pressed against her forehead every few moments, as he just looked down at her with a goofy grin on his face. And they stayed that way until the water was too cold to remain sitting in and he regretfully had to remove his arms from around her, suddenly feeling empty.

He tried not to focus on how impossibly thin she was, or how vulnerable she looked stood in front of him. He didn't say another word to her as he just focused on the task of helping her get into something comfortable – he couldn't help the happiness he felt when she picked one of his shirts to wear – and then he moved the covers back on the bed so she could lay on there. He wondered if there would be a night in the near future where she would remain in his arms all night and he could sleep in the knowledge she was safe with him.

He waited, and watched as she took a notebook from the side, one he had seen her scribbling in furiously more than once. He had been tempted to see what she had written inside but he knew that if he betrayed her trust in such a way, then there was no future for them. He had to be patient, he had to wait for her to tell him everything he needed to know. Once she had gotten into bed and he had tucked the covers over her, her eyes glanced down at the notebook she held in her hands before she handed it to him. He was confused, for just a second before she nodded her head, "Are you sure?" He asked, as he moved to the other side of the bed and slid in, watching as she leaned over to open up to the first page, the first words written on the page caused him to inhale sharply before she snuggled into his side and he took his first glance into the way Hanna thought.

 _Dear Caleb, these words are just for you... maybe one day I will be able to tell you these things out loud. But for now, you need to know whatever I can tell you by writing it down because I love you and I never want you to forget that. And I'm sorry for everything that you have gone through over the past three years, I wish I could take some of that pain away._

He gulped and glanced at the woman, moving to nudge his nose against her hair as he took a deep breath. He turned the page, inhaling a long, deep breath to prepare himself for whatever he was going to read as Hanna slowly started to fall asleep next to him after she moved her hand onto his chest and snuggled into his side a little more.

 _Dear Caleb,_

 _I know you must have a lot of questions, and thank you for not asking them. I don't know if I'll ever be able to find my voice again, it's as though there's something stuck in my throat, something I can't get rid of no matter what. I try, I open my mouth to say the words I really want and need to say but it's like I've forgotten. It started over a year ago, perhaps even two years ago – I promise you that before that, I would talk back to A (or Charlotte, I guess, but I don't like to give her a name because... it hurts too much to think of her as a human being). And then in the second year, things changed, I started talking less because I couldn't really think of anything to say. My bite had gone, I stopped fighting. This is going to be hard for you to read and I'm sure you've seen the scars and you've already realised it but... I tried to kill myself._

 _You have to understand how desperate I was to get out of there and nothing was working. We had hatched up escape plan after escape plan and even with Mona and Spencer on our side, there was no getting out of there. So, I stole a piece of shattered glass and I sat in my room, in the closet, and I decided that I was going to die. I remember hoping that A would dump my body somewhere you could find it, so you and my mom could have some form of closure. I'm so sorry that I gave up like that and I wish I could say it was the first and only time, but I tried again and again. Escape plans weren't working, and neither would my suicidal plans. If A didn't want us to do something, then it never happened, she controlled everything and anything._

 _That first time, I remember waking up and she was there, there was a cloth over my head and she poured water on me until I couldn't breathe. And she did it over and over again until I learned my lesson – she controlled my life, she controlled everything I thought and everything I did, and I was nothing and I had nothing. I thought about you every single second of every single day and I wished I was strong enough to hold on, but it had been so long and I was so tired of fighting._

 _I don't know when it happened but I guess one day my body got tired of fighting and everything became a little easier after that. First, I just spoke less, I answered with more grunts, more shrugs of my shoulders, I was less of a bitch and I guess A liked that. She had won and I was giving her exactly what she wanted even though I didn't intend to. And then one morning I woke up and I couldn't speak, I didn't even want to. The girls just accepted it, they had all given up by that point too – except Spencer, she didn't give up the entire time we were in there. She was amazing Caleb, you should have seen her... she almost got us out of there so many times but it was never meant to be._

 _I don't really know where to start with these letters, so I guess I'm just going to write to you every single time I feel as though I need to and I'll tell you whatever is playing on my mind that day. I guess that kind of works, you won't have an exact idea of what happened when because I have no clue either, and sometimes everything gets mixed up. Once, I remember her forcing Emily to push me, she was screaming at me, giving into whatever A wanted because she had given up too but I don't remember when that happened. I think maybe, if I really think about the memory, and I see the hardened look in Emily's eyes, I think it might have been the third year. She pushed me so hard I fell back and I hit my head. I remember her screaming, maybe that was the second year.._

 _I guess you're just going to get the bits and pieces just like I am. I wish I could tell you everything in the order it was meant to be and I'm sorry that I can't. I wish that I could for my own sake, as well. Everything gets all jumbled in my head, so these letters are probably going to be confusing. I sure as hell won't pass English if I ever get my GED, considering I never even got the chance to graduate high school._

 _Do you remember getting into a car crash? Was that real? It was my punishment for trying to kill myself the second time. I stole the knife that was used on us in a game before A could take it from us and I just... I stabbed myself right in front of them. Maybe that was the third attempt, I don't know... you've probably seen the scar. None of them was fast enough to stop me and considering I wasn't the only one who had attempted to kill myself, I don't think any of my friends would have denied me the opportunity to die. Charlotte hated me after that, even more than she already did. She showed me a newspaper cutting in the local news about how the boyfriend of missing girl had gotten into a crash one late night. Your brakes had failed, it said... and she told me she had done it. Maybe she did, maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe she lied to me. Did that happen?I'm sorry if it did, it was my fault, I'm so sorry that you got hurt because of me._

 _I bet it would be easier to love anyone other than me._

 _I'm so sorry._

 _But I love you. And despite every attempt to leave that place, it was never an attempt to leave you. I can't tell you how much being back in your arms means to me, and I'm sorry I can't be better. I'm sorry I'm putting you through so much but I promise, you being here means the world. Thank you for making me feel safe, thank you for waiting..._

 _I'm sorry that you had to wait._

 _Forever yours,_

 _Hanna_

Caleb tilted his head back and slowly moved the book to the side, wiping at the tears that had fallen down his face. "You've nothing to be sorry for," He whispered to the sleeping girl next to him before he moved further down the bed to securely wrap an arm around her, pulling her closer to him as he rubbed her back, "I'd have waited a lifetime if it meant I could hold you in my arms again." He knew she was asleep, but he hoped she could still, somehow, hear him and know that no matter what she told him, and no matter how long it took for her to talk again, he'd never stop loving her. His chest hurt, and his grip tightened when he thought about everything she had gone through; the book was full of pages that would allow him to delve deeper into the mind of Hanna Marin and everything she had gone through but those pages could wait, just so he could hold her close until she moved back to the closet.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews and as a huge thanks, here is the next chapter already! For those who wanted more of the other girls, here we go! This is just the beginning of part of the main plot line for this story and I hope you all enjoy it. I promise a scene of the girls with the police and Caleb with the police is coming up very soon because I absolutely love the idea! Until then, I hope you enjoy this chapter and the slight twist it serves up. Triggers do apply with references to violence throughout this chapter. Please review as each one is like a tiny bit of inspiration to stop me being the lazy person I'd love to be after work every day!**

" _You take me by the hand, I question who I am... teach me how to fight, I'll show you how to win. You're my mortal flaw and I'm your fatal sin. Let me feel the sting, the pain, the burn under my skin. Put me to the test, I'll prove that I'm strong, won't let myself believe that what we feel is wrong. I finally see what you knew was inside me all along." - Beth Crowley_

 _Hanna's eyes glanced down at the pictures in front of her, before her finger slowly pressed down on the button above Spencer's photograph. She sobbed when she heard a scream coming from the best friend she had just unwittingly tortured. She had learned the hard way what happened when they disobeyed the instructions of the games A liked to play with them; it was one of them or all four of them. And whilst she would take every single shock for all of her best friends, that was not a choice she was allowed to make. And all of their refusals had taken its toll on their bodies until they promised each other that they would just press a button, any button, to end the pain sooner than it would had they continued to prolong it. They had come up with a system and today, Hanna was meant to choose Spencer and Emily had gotten her._

 _And then she felt it, the shock running through her body, causing her to tense up as she bit back the scream that longed to fall from her lips._

Hanna woke up with a gasp, letting out a broken sob until she felt Caleb's arm tense around her. His eyes didn't open when she glanced at him, but she knew if she woke him up then he wouldn't care. A few seconds passed, and her eyes moved over to the open closet – where she kept a blanket and pillow for every night she had found herself cuddled up in there, completely safe. She took a deep breath, and then moved her eyes back to the sleeping man next to her. There was a pause, before she rested her head onto his chest and gripped onto his t-shirt and closed her eyes once again. She could feel Caleb's body relax and his arm tightened around her as she gave a small smile – she was safe right where she was. For the first time since she had been back, she didn't need her own version of safety that laid within that closet, because she was in Caleb's arms and surely that was the safest place in the world she would ever be able to find.

It had been Spencer's idea to meet up later that day, even though Hanna didn't want to leave the comfort of her own home for fear of the stares that would follow her around town. But her mother had insisted that she leave the house and spend some time with the girls she had been avoiding for far too long, and Caleb had given her a smile as he promised her that he would walk her to the Brew and even hang around to walk her back home. That was how she found herself sitting in the coffee shop she had once loved with her three best friends, just listening to them all talk about the month they had gone through since they had been back. It was just a week before they learned that the courts had decided not to press charges against them for the murder of Charlotte DiLaurentis, and the day before had been Charlotte's funeral as her body had finally been released. Spencer had text her telling her that they all needed to be together, even if it was just for an hour.

Hanna had just listened as her friends spoke about their lives post-dollhouse – Emily was getting used to what her house was like now her father was gone. She was struggling horrifically with the fact that she had never said goodbye to the man she had loved, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by Hanna or the other girls that she was wearing her father's old Army jacket. She coated over the fact Alison hadn't left the hospital until Emily had gone home, in fact, she barely spoke of Alison at all but Hanna kind of understood how conflicting the feelings must have been – from what she understood, Paige had gone to college the year before, having lost all hope that Emily would be found. At least, that's what Caleb had told her but Alison had never given up on finding them, and most of all, she had never given up on Emily.

Aria hadn't been able to stay in her parents house, she had been staying in Ezra's apartment above the coffee shop they sat in right then. She wasn't able to face the bedroom that only reminded her of what she had left behind in that awful place, but Ezra's apartment was something new and fresh, something that hadn't been jaded by A which was something rare they had to find in Rosewood. She spoke of the nightmares she had every single night and how Ezra struggled to comfort her because when she woke up, she didn't want to be touched. She wasn't used to actually being touched, she wasn't used to the comfort people were trying to offer her after three years of... nothing.

And Spencer mentioned how she put up with her overbearing parents and older sister who didn't know when to leave her alone even when she begged them to. Toby seemed to always be there as well and whilst Spencer appreciated it, she struggled with everything because she was so used to spending much of her time alone. She had spent so much time by herself, plotting in her head about how she was going to get out of there and now the only thing that could occupy her mind was how she was going to heal. Already, after just a month, there was talk about her taking her GED so she could go to college and properly move on; the youngest of the Hastings family had no idea how to cope with that thought. She had barely gotten back on her feet at home, to even think about going to college was almost too much.

Each of the girls were struggling in their own ways – Hanna wanted to be around Caleb as much as she possibly could but she was silent, so there was no pushing and there was no discussion. Caleb was patient with her, he spoke gently, he didn't mention the future, he didn't ask her questions about the past and Hanna was growing to love the smell of cigarettes and the faint smell of beer that always seemed to linger. She craved it as well, whenever he was gone, she wanted to be back in his arms and somehow, that made things a little easier. Spencer wanted to be alone on the other hand, because she was so used to it, and there was a pressure that came with being around her family that the other girls didn't feel with their own. Aria couldn't face the pain in her parents eyes, but still, she pushed Ezra away as much as she could without actually losing him completely, because the guilt was almost too much. And Emily hid all of her pain in an attempt to comfort her mother who was dealing with the death of her husband, and three years of thinking she had lost her daughter as well, whilst also denying herself the comfort of Alison because the relationship would always feel tainted to her and maybe to Alison as well.

A silence fell amongst them once they had discussed everything that was happening in their lives and the feelings they had been struggling with until the silence was broken by a terrified looking Emily who leaned towards them as she frowned, "Do you ever wish you were back there?" She finally whispered, as her hands clasped around her mug, before she looked around, as though she was scared someone other than her friends would hear the words she had just spoken. To anyone who hadn't been in the dollhouse, it would sound crazy but Hanna understood what she meant – of course, she would never go back, none of them would but there was a routine they had, they knew what was coming, it had been three years of their lives and now they had to face the disappointment of their loved ones. Her eyes glanced down at the cup she held when Spencer and Aria both nodded their heads, and she bit down on her lip. "I said it to my therapist the other day and she looked at me like I had grown a second head..."

Hanna looked up to watch her friends, they had grown accustomed to her silence, they understood, but she wondered if it ever irritated them in the same way it did her. She tried so hard, she longed to be able to speak but it was as though her selective mutism had turned into non-selective mutism. Her voice box had stopped working, her brain had stopped allowing her mouth to form words. She had gone from not speaking because it was the only control she had in that place, to not being able to because her body and brain decided that was just the way it was. Her body was pathetic, she quickly decided, especially as she listened to the three girls who had been through the exact same thing she had. They spoke about their therapy sessions, and she had to wonder if it was helping them to be able to speak about it – Hanna spent most of her therapy sessions with a notebook and a large pad of blank paper that she was meant to draw in. Her therapist didn't mention the fact she hadn't spoken, not yet, and Hanna was a relief because when it was pointed out, she wanted to run away. She _knew_ she couldn't talk, she didn't need people to point it out.

That was something she had forgotten about being with the other three – they never made her feel inferior or weak. They managed to include her without forcing her to talk, they managed to make her feel comfortable enough to smile, and to forget the dark thoughts that seemed to constantly run through her head. "My therapist told me to write down five things I missed when I was in there," Spencer spoke, and Hanna looked at her with a curious expression on her face as she tried to think of her own five things. "Mine were my family which even I was shocked about but I guess they've been... easier to deal with when I've been away from them for a few years, Toby, fresh coffee..." The brunette held up the coffee she held in her hands (her second one since they had arrived twenty minutes before), "I missed the sun setting and the sun rising and long road trips. Even though I've never been on a long road trip but I missed them anyway because when you can't do something that you've always wanted to do..."

Aria nodded her understanding, and Emily just smiled at her rambling best friend, "Well," Aria was the next to speak, "I missed my family more than anything, Ezra, my camera, the smell of a bookshop and the taste of my mother's fresh cooking." Spencer smiled at Hanna and opened up the notebook Hanna had been holding, giving her a pen as she nodded her head. Five things she had missed, five things that would remind her that it was good to be alive and it was an amazing thing that she could be free.

"My five things would have to be my parents..." Hanna saw the tears in her best friends eyes already because they all knew that she had missed the death of one of them, she had been stolen from her chance to say goodbye to her own father and that was just another thing A had stolen from them. "... swimming, I got into the pool for the first time the other day and I just... I forgot how nice the water felt against my skin and I had forgotten the way it made me feel... I missed it so much. Um, I missed running too... feeling the fresh air against my skin, and Christmas... god, I missed that so much. I know it'll never be the same again, it only ever meant the world because my dad made it home most of the time but... I still missed that celebration and A-" Hanna knew what the pause was; it had been three years but Emily still couldn't admit her feelings for the sister of the person who had tortured them for so long, and Hanna wasn't sure she could blame her, "I missed some people as well, and even though we were all there together, I missed being able to be us."

Five things, that was all she had to think of but it was the hardest thing right then. She had missed so much but she had been so willing to say goodbye to it all to end her pain whilst she was there and whilst the suicidal thoughts were slowly leaving her confused mind, they still remained. Spencer took the paper from her with a small smile, "First Hanna, if you're not going to talk then you need to work on your handwriting," She teased, smirking when Hanna playfully slapped her arm with a roll of her eyes. "Hanna missed her mom, Caleb, Netflix..." She gave the blonde a look but she just shrugged it off with a smile, "Shopping and... being able to speak."

At that, Hanna looked down, because she could feel their eyes on her but instead of commenting on it, Aria looked up and out of the door that opened when someone walked in, "I see Caleb and Toby couldn't go far..." She mumbled, as she looked at the two men who were sitting next to Ezra on a bench across from the coffee shop. "Do you think it was easier to be us or them?"

"I don't think either was easy but... at least we knew what was going on. They had no clue if we were even alive, or what we were going through.." Hanna quickly stood up when Spencer had finished, tears in her eyes before she tried to find a way she could tell them that she had to leave. She didn't have to though, it was almost as though the other girls had read her mind as Spencer and Aria stood up as well, leaving just Emily to sit there. She couldn't have the girl she wanted because she was still denying herself, and Hanna wished the two would just sort it out, quickly, she grabbed her notebook and wrote something down before she handed it to Emily with a pointed look. She needed someone as well and even though they all knew that their other halves would never be able to heal them or fix what they had been through – Emily needed someone as well.

Another word didn't pass between them as they walked out of the place that had once felt like a second home considering how much time they had spent there, and their arms wrapped around each other once they were stood outside. "We have to do this again soon, it's been too long..." Spencer held onto Hanna tightly, until the four women froze when their phones alerted to them to a new text message at the same time. Her heart thumped uncomfortably and her face visibly paled, as she wore a matching expression as her best friends once they all pulled out their phones.

"Tell me who killed Charlotte or you'll all pay." Emily read out, and Hanna's eyes met with Caleb's across the road. He must have sensed the fear, he must have known something was going horribly wrong because he had thrown his cigarette down on the floor in a second and was by her side before she could even blink. He didn't say a word as he took the phone from her and bit down on his lip when he read the words, over and over again. He had just gotten her back, he had only just made her feel safe enough to be able to sleep in a bed and now there was someone else he had to protect her from. He tucked the phone into his own pocket and then wrapped his arms around her, pressing his lips to her head when she let out a broken sob.

 _Dear Caleb,_

 _She didn't hurt us every single day, you know? She didn't make us hurt each other all the time either. Sometimes, that would be even more painful, and more terrifying... at least with physical pain you can brace yourself for it. You can see the scars it leaves behind and you can prepare yourself for what is about to hit you. It was the stuff she used to do to us that doesn't leave a physical scar that hurt the most._

 _I remember once, after another failed escape plan, she locked us in our rooms. That sounds pathetic when I write it down but when I say locked us in our rooms, I mean she actually kept us in there for months. At least that's what Spencer said, by that time I had already stopped counting the days but Spencer never stopped counting – she said we had been there for almost three months. We had no physical contact, whenever we tried to shout to each other, A would let off this awful alarm until we gave up. We'd get water once a day, and a meal every so often. We had to pee in a bucket she put in our room._

 _I think that was the worst. Not knowing what was happening to each other, I was on edge for the entire time because I had no clue what was going to happen next. But nothing ever happened, I never saw her, she never touched me or any of us in that entire time. She never came near us. Just slipped a pathetic tray of food through a pathetic letter box thing she had pre-prepared in the door for us. Like she knew she would punish us with no human contact._

 _I was with those girls in that hell hole for three years but there was months at a time when I didn't see them or speak to them. That was our punishment because she couldn't do anything to tear us apart. That was what she wanted, I think, she wanted us to turn against each other but despite everything, it never happened._

 _Once, Emily hit me so hard with a baseball bat, we all heard my ribs let out this awful crack. But I still wrapped my arms around her and told her I forgave her once it was over because I knew she did what she had to do. I would rather her hit me than whatever punishment A would have put on us if she had refused. That was what she made us do, Caleb... she made us hurt each other because the alternative was much more terrifying. I think she underestimated how much we love each other, how strong our friendship was... I've stood in front of Spencer with a knife in my hand and saw nothing but love and understanding in her eyes. I've punched Emily in the face so hard that she bled but we still fell asleep in each other's arms that night before A forced us back to our own rooms and I've held Aria's head under water until A told me to stop but still she accepted the extra blanket I gave her that night with a smile._

 _She did everything she could to tear us apart and it never worked. Maybe it would have been easier if it did because then the mind games wouldn't have hurt so much, right? I don't know anymore. You do what you have to do to survive but when you don't want to survive anymore, you do what you have to do so that your friends survive and that's all it ever was. Survival for the sake of survival. That was our entire lives._

 _But despite that, I'm glad I'm back in your arms. I'm sorry if anything I write makes you feel like I don't want to be here with you because I do, I really do.. you have no idea how much I do but... I just need to tell you the truth no matter how much it hurts either of us._

 _I didn't want to survive in there Caleb. But I'm glad I did._

 _Forever yours,_

 _Hanna._

Caleb put the book to the side and rubbed his eyes, he needed to go for a cigarette but instead, he pulled the girl next to him as close as she could possibly get until she was practically laying on top of him. She had finally cried herself to sleep since she had gotten that text and he hadn't let go of her since he had to carry her home from that place. He didn't explain to Ashley what had happened, he didn't want to terrify the woman even more than she already had been, not until he had more information on what he needed to go on. They had only been back for a month, who could possibly care what happened to that murdering, kidnapping bitch? He buried his head in Hanna's hair as his own tears fell in sadness and anger at just the thought of Hanna being put through hell again for no reason. There was never a reason.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews – to those who have asked, Hanna will get her voice back but I don't want to rush it just yet. I have the perfect idea coming up in the future but if you have any ideas on the first words Hanna will talk, then please leave them in the reviews!**

 **Disclaimer – I own nothing other than the general plot of this story, but the characters belong to the creators of Pretty Little Liars.**

" _You're supposed to walk around with this perpetual bubble over your head thinking happy thoughts and then everything is going to be sunshine and roses. Nope, sorry, don't think so. You can be as happy as you've ever been in your life, and shit is still going to happen. But it doesn't just happen. It knocks you sideways and crushes you into the ground, because you were stupid enough to believe in sunshine and roses." - Chevy Stevens_

It was staring again, of that Hanna was sure. Perhaps it had only been the one text and maybe she could have just let that go had it not been for everything they had already gone through. She felt sick at the thought of someone else being after them – maybe it would never end, maybe their entire lives would be a cycle of being stalked, tortured, and then expected to just live with it. A never-ending cycle that seemed to have started with Alison, or maybe her own father when she truly thought about it.

Hanna wrapped her arms a little tighter around herself, sat in Spencer's yard, surrounded by her best friends and their respective partners (or almost partners, she supposed, in Emily and Alison's case), she didn't take her eyes from the way Caleb brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled sharply, before he breathed out the smoke with a satisfied look on his face with every drag he took. They had all fallen into an unsteady silence after the discussion of the newest text had fallen into the awkward staring at their phones as though they were waiting for the second text to arrive at any given second. Hanna's eyes finally moved to the people she was surrounded by – Toby had his arm wrapped around Spencer, and his lips pressed against her head, in the gentle sunlight, Hanna could see the scar on Spencer's cheekbone that had been given to her as punishment for refusing to partake in a game. Her hair was scraped back, her face was pale and Hanna could see her fingernails had been bitten down to the skin. Whilst Toby's arms were wrapped around her, Spencer's arms remained limply in her lap as she stared down at the grass, a frown on her face – a tell tale sign that she was in deep thought about something and Hanna knew what it was. There were two people responsible for the death of Charlotte DiLaurentis, but Spencer had been the one to end it completely and Hanna wondered how terrified she was of whatever was going to happen when this new person found out.

Her blue eyes met with those of Emily's chocolate ones for a moment, before she bit down on her lip and snuggled further into Caleb's side as his arm tightened around her. Emily just looked so... lost, Hanna didn't know how else to describe it. Her eyes were glazed over, a blank expression always on her face as she seemed to stare at something that nobody else could see. Her hand was in Alison's, but she didn't seem as though she was there. At least Emily contributed the conversation though, Hanna bitterly thought as she frowned at her own thoughts, and, as though he could sense the increased tension in her body, Caleb pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered that he loved her in her ear, which never failed to make her smile.

After a moment, she glanced over at where Ezra and Aria were sat; as far away from each other as either of them could possibly could get with the little circle eight of them had formed. Their fingertips still touched though, but they didn't look at each other and Hanna wished she could ask Aria what had happened in the three years since they had gone that would make the two of them seem so far apart. There were deep, dark circles beneath both their eyes and Aria had attempted to cover up how pale and exhausted she was with poorly applied make-up – maybe Hanna and Alison would have pointed it out once but neither of them said a single word about the way any of them looked, after so long it seemed to be more of a relief that they were there at all.

With a small smile on her face, the blonde tilted her head up to meet Caleb's lips, savouring the taste of his cigarette against her own lips for just a moment before she pulled back with a light blush on her cheeks when he breathed out a puff of smoke, a small smirk on his face. The fact she found him smoking completely hot was never something she would express in writing or voice, but it was obvious by the fascinated look on her face whenever she watched him. And considering he smoked around fifteen to twenty cigarettes a day, she realised that was a lot of time she could be found staring at him but he didn't seem to mind.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of Alison finally saying something that ended the slightly awkward silence that had fallen around half an hour before, "So, not that it matters to any of us... but are you going to tell us who murdered Charlotte?" Spencer and Hanna's eyes met for a second before they both looked back down, biting down on their lips before Emily and Aria looked between the two women – no one had to say a word, the reactions were obvious enough and suddenly, Caleb's body tensed. Perhaps he hadn't thought his girlfriend had it in her before, that she would be safe because she wasn't the person this new A was after, but now she was.

"Right, well... that information doesn't go any further than this." He muttered, his arm tightening even more around the blonde before he brought her even closer to him until she was practically sitting on his lap. There was an anger in his voice, and she wondered if it was aimed at her or the situation they had found themselves in – maybe she was the person who had been through hell and back but he had been on the other side. He had been waiting for her, he had been searching for her, he had been in a car crash because of her and maybe other things she had no idea about. Maybe she didn't talk at all, but he never mentioned about what had happened whilst she was gone. They barely spoke of the past, or of the last three years; when he did talk to her, it was to remind her how he felt about her, and how much he had missed her. He would talk about the fact she hadn't eaten that day, or he would ask her if she was okay, he would hold her close and mutter the things she needed to hear from him in her ear whenever she cried.

"There's no point other people getting hurt for something... we did." Spencer finally spoke, and Hanna looked up at her, "Really, it was more something I did," The brunette continued with a small shrug of her shoulders, "Hanna just gave me the opportunity I needed to do what I had already planned on doing. So, if this... new A, or whatever we're meant to call them needs someone's head on a stick then it should be mine." Hanna quickly shook her head, her eyes wide, it was not her intent to make Spencer take all the blame for something they had both done. The only innocent people who had been in that room that day were Aria and Emily, so whatever punishment that was to be faced for murdering the person who had done so many awful things to her, it was something she and Spencer had to face together.

Spencer met her eyes, before she let out a small sigh and nodded her head, "Hanna and I are more than prepared to take whatever have coming." She finally settled on; Hanna half-wondered if Emily and Aria would protest, or if they were just too exhausted to even argue about it anymore. Hanna and Spencer were the only people this person was after, so it was their problem. A few moments passed and this time, Aria spoke, "No, we keep our mouths shut about this, this person can do whatever they want to us but if we keep silent, they'll get bored..." She was hopeful, and Hanna could feel the same hope rising inside her as well – maybe this person just wanted a reaction and nothing more.

"We need to talk about what we all came here to talk about," Alison's voice was serious, and her eyes glanced around at those who had gathered in Spencer's yard. "Do you all have lawyers?" The four women nodded their heads, matching frowns crossing their features because none of them truly understood why the police were so insistent on talking to them about everything that had happened and why they needed a lawyer there with them. "Have you all settled on a story about how Charlotte died?" This time, they shook their heads and Hanna took a deep breath; they had just agreed not to talk about it, right? It was one of those secrets they were meant to have kept until someone was insisting on finding out which of them had committed murder.

Caleb took a deep breath and lit his fifth cigarette since they had gotten there, "When they ask, tell them that you did it. Each of you, the information can't get back to whoever is behind this... I don't trust them, I don't trust what can be found out from those statements. So, be careful with what you say, we don't know who's reading those words." She could sense that bitterness and anger in his voice, making her pull away so she could look at him and she wondered for a moment, how many times he had been interviewed by the police in the three years since she had been stolen from him. How many times must they have let him down for him to hate them so much? And for Toby to give up the badge he had once been so proud to wear?

"You just need to tell them what happened, what she did to you, go over the facts, keep it brief." Toby muttered, "I don't know what they want from you guys, in my eyes the case is closed but... whatever they want, it can't be good so just.. watch your backs in there." There was another short burst of silence before Spencer started to laugh, quickly joined by Aria and Emily before Hanna finally joined in with a small, sad smile on her face. There was a shared look of confusion on the faces of their loved ones, staring at them as though the four women were crazy before Spencer wiped at the tears that had fallen down her face once she had calmed down, "We get kidnapped for three years and Rosewood PD blame us, wow this town is fucked up."

After that, the rest of the day passed too quickly. Hanna found herself sitting in an interview room with their joint lawyer, and the three other girls she had spent so long with. She played with the ends of her hair, biting down on her lip when her eyes met with the eyes of Detective Tanner before she quickly looked down and took a deep breath. This was the moment she had been avoiding for the month since she had been home; she was surprised they had been allowed to put it off for so long because Tanner and Holbrook seemed more than determined to get this out of the way. Maybe it was all for innocent reasons, maybe they wanted to tie up loose ends on an investigation they had failed on. They could have found them, they could have looked harder, they could have been better at their jobs and the three years wouldn't have been the three years of torture. She wondered if she lived somewhere like New York, or Boston, would the Police have found them sooner? Or was A really that good at keeping it all a secret?

The past few weeks had been wasted by their parents, and their lawyer arguing that the girls should be allowed to interview together because they had been through it together. They could draw support in one another, it would be easier for them to fill in the gaps because one could remember something that another didn't. Eventually, the police relented and Hanna felt more comfortable with her hand clasped into Spencer's and Emily's with her eyes focused on the table in front of them. The questions were what she expected – _what happened when you were taken? Was there just the one kidnapper? Did you only see Charlotte the entire time you were there? Were there any escape opportunities? What happened to you in there?_

Her friends kept their answers short and to the point – they had been in the back of the prison van on their way to court, one minute they had been talking whilst they were being driven to the court accused of a crime that had never even happened and the next, the van came to a stop before smoke filled the air and then they remembered nothing before they woke up in what looked like their bedrooms in their own respective homes. As far as they were aware, only one person was behind the kidnapping and their torture. They only saw Charlotte the entire time they were there. Only the opportunities they made for themselves and each one of them failed horrifically. What didn't happen to them in there?

She could feel eyes on her, it had been over an hour since they had gotten there and she could sense that they were just waiting for her to say something. "Hanna?" She finally heard and she gulped as she looked up, "Are you going to contribute?" She felt sick, the patronising tone in Tanner's voice was enough to make the panic rise inside of her as she shook her head in response. She had nothing to say, she couldn't say anything – the girls knew what she had been through, she could write down what she had been through if she needed to but she had to remember to keep it brief. There was no reason for each of them to sit there and recount every horrible, evil thing that Charlotte had forced them to do, or the things she had done to them. Why should they speak of the evils they had committed against each other and against the innocent people on the outside who had no clue what was going on?

"H-Hanna doesn't... she can't talk." Spencer glared at the woman in front of her and her hand tightened in Hanna's. There was a hope inside of her that they would just drop it there and move on, that they would slide a piece of paper and a pen in front of her and let her write what she needed to down. She could answer their questions, she could tell them whatever they needed but only in writing.

"Yes, we know... selective mutism, isn't it?" There was that condescending tone, this time from the man she had once kissed as he slammed his paper down. She could remember the last time she had spoken to him, the crowbar she had slammed down onto his arm in the similar manner he had placed those papers down on the table in front of them. There was an unresolved, angry tension between the two of them since that had happened but he couldn't destroy her like that. He couldn't speak to her, or about her in that way and expect her to be okay. Their argument was nothing compared to the hell she had been through since, although he wasn't ready to let go of the awful bruise she must have given him that night.

"Brought on by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, yes." Emily answered, cocking her eyebrow as she settled her glare on the two members of the Rosewood Police force in front of her. "Are you really so incompetent at your jobs that you don't understand the effects trauma can have on the mind? And trust me, what we went through was a severe trauma and if she doesn't want to talk, or if she can't talk, then there is nothing you can say or do to change that. Hanna will talk when she's ready to, but until then, why don't you just hand her your pen and a piece of paper and she'll tell you whatever the hell it is you need to know?" The tension rose in the room, and the three women next to her stared at the detectives across from them with a look that they hoped would shut them up.

Only, it didn't. The attention was on the blonde and it only served to make her heart thump harder against her chest, her palms were sweaty, she had to let go of the hands that had been keeping her in the room so she could wipe them on her jeans. She took a deep, shaking breath, her eyes tearing up as she bit down on her lip and refused to look up to meet the look of the two people she could feel staring at her. "We can't leave this room until Hanna tells us in her own words what happened." Hanna rested her head in her hands and shook her head, gripping at her hair as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The room was spinning, and she was struggling to breathe – there had been only one person who had tried to force her to talk and right then, she was struggling to remember where she was.

"We know you can talk, Hanna, we've heard you plenty of times, you've made your opinions quite well known in the past. So, what are you trying to hide right now?" They carried on, until Spencer slammed her hand down on the table and stood up, displaying an anger Hanna had not seen in her since the dollhouse which only brought her right back to that place she had tried to avoid.

 _A gripped onto Hanna's long, blonde hair and slammed her head against the floor, "Tell me to stop!" She was being screamed at, her head being lifted once again before it was slammed back down onto the concrete floor. Blood poured down her face, but still, she didn't say a word – this was a game A liked to play with her. Trying to force her into talking because the fact that Hanna didn't say a word was what irritated her the most. She may have wanted them to be broken, but she loved the reactions she got from them._

 _Then there was a kick to her back, before a foot pressed down on the back of her neck, "Tell me to stop." Hanna just smirked as she closed her eyes; it hurt like hell, but if she kept it there until she passed out or even until she died, then Hanna still won. Not talking was the only control she had and despite the fact her body was screaming at her to tell her to stop, her mind was telling her that she had to cling onto the last bit of control she had._

"Is this an interrogation or a victim account?!" Spencer's voice was loud, tense and irritated as she stood over the detectives with a glare on her face that was met with blank stares. "Why don't you sit down, Spencer? We're just trying to get a full account on everything that has happened for the past three years – not everyone believed you were kidnapped, you know?" None of them could stop what was happening, as Spencer lunged over the table with a sudden scream, her chair being thrown back in a sudden fit of rage that matched the kind Hanna had seen so many times – the kind of anger that was saved for nobody other than A.

It took Emily a moment, the shock on her face apparent as she grabbed Spencer by the waist and held her back. Aria moved quickly to put her hands over her ears as her eyes squeezed shut and she whispered to herself that she was going to be okay, she was in Rosewood, she was back home and she was going to be okay.

" _Say something!" The masked woman in front of her pushed Hanna back, so her chair fell and the back of her head slammed against the floor this time. The world was spinning, she felt as though she was going to throw up – it had only been two days since the last attack and A was not going to stop until all of her control was gone. She wanted there to be nothing left and having nothing left included doing exactly what A wanted them to do. And right then, A wanted nothing more than for Hanna to speak because control was not a thing that existed there. They weren't meant to control anything, not even the words that left their mouths._

 _A loud crack echoed around the room when a large, metal object collided with her ribs and she let out a sharp gasp, the tears started to fall and bit back the scream that longed to fall from her lips. She wasn't going to utter a word, it was all she had._

The blonde wrapped her arms around herself after she brought her knees to her chest, letting out a sob as she hid her face in her knees and shook her head. Their victim statement had turned into a mess – Aria was rocking herself back and forth as she tried to tell herself she was not back in the dollhouse, Emily was breathing heavily as she tried to hold Spencer back and Spencer was right back where she had been, ready to attack whoever came near her or her friends and their lawyer just looked pale and confused in the corner of the room – it should have been a simple, and easy interview but anarchy had ensued and when the door slammed open, she knew it was only going to get worse.

There was a fire in Caleb's eyes, matched by Toby's when they both walked into the room – they could hear the screams from outside where they had been waiting and when both the men saw the scene they had run into, they knew their suspicions of the Police force that Toby had once been pride to serve, were correct. "What the fuck did you do?!" Caleb shouted, grabbing Holbrook by the collar before he threw him back against the wall, "Stay the hell away from them, if I even catch you breathing the same air as any of them, I will happily spend the rest of my life in jail." His threat wasn't one that had to be spoken any clearer than that, when he finally let go of the man, holding up his hands in a mock surrender. "We're going, and they're done answering your pointless questions."

He didn't hesitate to move over to his girlfriend, lifting her up with ease before he walked out of there, his lips pressed against Hanna's ear as he whispered to her, "You're going to be okay, you never have to go back there. I love you... you're here, you're home, Hanna."

 _The door slammed behind her and Hanna found herself in a tiny, cell-like room. "You can come out when you tell me you want to," She heard the irritating voice of the person who had forced her into the room just a second before – it was dark, empty except for a mattress in the corner of the room and an old blanket. Slowly, she moved over to sit on top of the lumpy mattress and snuggled as far into the corner as she possibly could as she kept her eyes on the door in front of her. She was going to be in there for a long time and she had no idea if she even cared about rotting in that place._

Later that night, Caleb ran his fingers through Hanna's hair as she rested her head in his lap and closed her eyes. She had calmed down just an hour before and he had heard from his friends that Spencer had finally fallen asleep after pacing for hours, and ranting about everything the police had made them feel in there, Aria had to be sedated before she finally fell asleep and Emily had barely spoken a word about what had happened in that room. Hanna had been sobbing in his arms for hours after it had happened, Ashley had been on the phone to anyone who would listen to her complaints before she had set about typing up email after email. Caleb had managed to get Hanna out into the yard, into the fresh air and the two of them had been sat on the grass since with her head in his lap. Once she was asleep, he pulled the book from beside him and took another cigarette from the pack before he turned to the page he needed.

 _Dear Caleb,_

 _Do you think I'll be broken forever?_

 _I miss the person I was before all of this happened, but I don't know how to get that person back. I want, more than anything, to be normal again but I don't think I ever will. After you've seen the things I have and been through what I have, is it even possible to be okay again?_

 _Not talking gives me the only control I have left. I had this power that A couldn't take from me and she tried, god she tried. She tried to control me in every single way possible, she tried her best to make me speak again but still, I stayed strong and now, when I need my voice more than ever before, it won't come out. She slammed my head against the floor and screamed at me to tell her to stop, she kicked me, she held me against the floor, she beat me until I thought I was going to die but still I didn't say a word._

 _So, she locked me up in this tiny cell. It was completely dark, not a shed of light shone through any cracks in the door. There was just a mattress and a blanket and every so often, she would open the door to give me a glass of water and a stale piece of bread. Just enough to keep me alive, even if I didn't want to be. I guess I could have died in there if I had wanted to but when I imagined my suicide, I wanted it to be messy and controlled by no one other than me. It would have been too easy to die of starvation or dehydration and I doubted she would have let it happen anyway, no matter how hard I tried._

 _I don't know how long I was there – she said I would be there until I started to talk again but that never happened. She let me out because she missed my presence in the games, but that proved to be her ultimate demise. I'm not sure how long I was in there but I wasn't out of there for very long before I turned around and slammed that bat against her head. She wanted me to break, to bend in two, to shatter... and I did. But she died because of it and I don't even feel an ounce of guilt..._

 _I don't know how long she kept me in there, Caleb, maybe it was just a few days, or maybe a few weeks. I wish I knew how long it had been._

 _I love you... I have so many questions, Caleb, and because of me... the one person who can answer them isn't able to answer them. And I don't know how to live with that._

 _Love,_

 _Hanna_


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews, I loved each of them! Guest – I love that idea, I may very well use it in future chapters, to thank you very much! I'm not entirely certain if Tom Marin will make an appearance in this story, it would bring further drama especially as Hanna isn't talking at the moment, so he does have the potential for turning up in the future! This chapter is from Caleb's point of view so I apologise if it's awful, but I thought we needed more of his side of everything.**

" _These were the lovely bones that had grown in my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it." - Alice Sebold_

Caleb sighed as he wrapped an arm tighter around Hanna, his own eyes falling to a close as he bit down on his lip and just stared ahead. She was back in his arms, right where she belonged and he knew that he should be happy about that, and he was. He was truly happy that she was safe and back with him and her mother but at the same time, it broke his heart. His mind had been playing havoc with him whilst she had been gone – he had imagined some of the worst things, and some of them had come true but she was alive. He should have been happier about that.

The man frowned as he pulled a sleeping Hanna a little closer to him, her hand curled around his shirt and he averted his eyes when his stomach lurched with that over familiar pain, wishing he could take every whimper, every hurtful moment she had suffered through, and give it all to himself. Instead, his eyes settled on the bedroom, with its dull walls and lack of decoration, noting how it was so unlike his girlfriend. Or at least, so unlike the woman he had once known and loved. She may have been different now, but his feelings for her hadn't changed, despite the time and events that had passed.

Slowly, he moved his fingers through her hair and he thought about everything – the things she had told him that had happened, the fact she wouldn't speak, the look in her eyes, the fact that three years had passed and she still wasn't home. Not in the way he wanted her to be. But he guessed, he wasn't really home either – no place was home without Hanna. And that was how he had felt for so long, like a lost boy who had no home, no family, no heart... he was nothing without her. For three years, the only thing that had driven him to get out of bed every single day, was his fear and his anger; if he ever stayed in bed past twelve, he'd list all of the things that could be happening to Hanna right then, in his head, and he'd be out of there and out of the door within ten minutes, searching for her as he did the day before, and the day before that.

She suffered, they all did, and he knew that but it was hard being on the outside, as well. The unknowing, the terror that paralysed him every single time the body of a young woman was found within a fifty mile radius. It had first happened a year after, not too far after the candlelit vigil that marked their two year anniversary, the body of a young, blonde woman had been found in the next town over. Caleb would remember that moment for the rest of his life; when Ashley had received the phone call and repeated those words to him moments later. He had emptied the entire contents of his stomach, he collapsed to the ground and the tears had fallen before he could stop them. In that moment, he had been utterly convinced that the body was that of the woman he loved, that the end had come and A had finally let her come home... in a body bag. His grief had been unbearable, the body had been unrecognisable and they had to wait for DNA records to come back to them and thus, he had spent the twenty-four hours afterwards drinking, smoking, punching walls and torturing himself with photographs of the two of them together, as he thought of all the things they could have and should have had.

At that point, he was twenty years old and she would have been nineteen; she would have been finishing her first year of college in New York and he would be there with her and instead, he was already planning her funeral in his head. He had never told anyone, but when that body had been found and he had heard of the damage that had been done to that woman who turned out to be nothing more than a stranger to him, he had already made the decision that if it was Hanna, then he wouldn't be able to carry on without her.

Those were the darkest days – and whilst he never had the deep scars on his wrist to mark those days as he had seen on Hanna's, his knuckles were littered with the smallest of scars that displayed the pain he had been in for so long. Caleb was surprised he hadn't ended up in prison, the amount of bar fights he had been in, along with the claims of trespassing, harassment and wasting police time accusations that had been thrown at him as the years passed. He hated everyone and everything other than the people who believed him, which was such a limited amount – Ashley, Toby, Alison, Ezra. A few of the other parents seemed to believe him but he could sometimes see the hesitation in their eyes because he guessed, their girls running away would be more comforting than the thought of them being locked up with a psychopath who could be doing anything to them, if they were still alive.

He knew that being in there would have been the hardest thing in the world but he also knew that there was a belief that the victims of a crime were the only ones who suffered. There was a tendency to forget the suffering of those left behind, the ones who knew nothing of the pain their loved ones were going through, and who tortured themselves just thinking about it. Every dead body of a blonde, young woman left him terrified, whenever anyone mentioned her name he felt sick to his stomach. He would always remember sitting down one night and writing a list of all the things that could have happened to her whilst she was away from him and each one broke his heart. She could have been dead that entire time and he would have never known, but he had to keep searching and keep hoping until he knew for sure where she was and what had happened. Dead or alive, he would be able to make his decision soon after about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Living without Hanna was never really living. Caleb could barely remember a single good thing he actually did within that time, he lived off the money his mother would send him, he lived in the apartment she had bought him, but he did a bit of freelance work here and there when funds were running low and he needed gas money to search the woods in the next county. Where Hanna and the girls had been found, he had been there four times, calling their names, searching for them for endless hours before they gave up and went back home. He may have walked over where she had been trapped, he should have noticed, he should have felt her. That was the guilt he would never have been able to push aside. Maybe he never could have stopped A from taking them whilst they were on their way to the courts, but he could have found them if he had just looked harder, listened better...

His thoughts were shaken from the sound of Hanna waking beside him, as she shifted in his arms and her eyes fluttered open. She was so beautiful, and despite everything, she was still the most perfect woman he had ever laid his eyes on. He wished she would say something, he longed to hear her voice more than anything else. He had missed her, he had missed everything and she was there but she wasn't. Her eyes were lost, she barely smiled, she never spoke, she found it hard to maintain any form of eye contact for too long and most of the time, when he reached out to touch her without warning, she'd jump as far from him as she possibly could.

Slowly, her hand moved to rest over his chest and her nose nudged against his neck and he heard her let out a small sigh as he rubbed her back. "Hanna?" He whispered, causing her to look up as she bit down on her lip and waited for him to say whatever he needed to say. He paused, and looked away from her before he spoke once again, "I just need you to know that I never stopped looking for you... it killed me every single day but I never stopped. I'm just... so sorry that I never found you, that I let you down. I let three years pass and whilst I never stopped looking, I never found you either and that is so much worse..." He trailed off and pressed his lips to her forehead as his own eyes closed in an attempt to stop the tears from falling down his pale face. He had no idea what the words that fell from his mouth were meant to convey but he wanted to fill the silence with the words that were meant to let her know what he had been doing for the past three years. The words he had never spoken before, because he had almost forgotten that Hanna wasn't the only one of them who had suffered greatly.

"I know I've said it before, Han... but I need you to remember that, no matter what happens in the future... that I never stopped looking and I will never leave your side for as long as you will have me. And I know... I know that things seem so daunting and terrifying right now and maybe you feel as though you will never be the same person again and you probably never will but I still love you. You are still the woman I fell in love with no matter what. But you're going to hear things about me or you will find out things about me that you're not going to like... or agree with. So, I just need to tell you before you hear it from someone else who makes it sound so much worse than it actually is. I spent more time with the police than I would have liked, they just seemed to be everywhere I was, everywhere doing everything except looking for you and I was just so angry, Hanna. I hated them, I hated everything, I hated that barely anybody believed me..." He let out a small laugh and shook his head, "I don't know where I'm going with this."

Her eyes looked up at him and he frowned, she had wrote those letters to him, there were so many of them and she added a new one almost every day and he appreciated it. He knew she needed to feel the same – as though he was sharing his own thoughts with her so she wouldn't be kept in the dark as he had for so long. "The first year was filled with nothing other than looking for you, I spent my time putting up posters, looking through the woods, going through every single town and asking anyone if they had seen you or any of your friends at all. And then this body of a woman was found... her name was Emily Taylor and she was blonde, nineteen years old, she had been hitching a ride back from New York and had gotten into the wrong car. She was raped, tortured... and left for dead. It was two weeks before anyone found her body and it was unidentifiable, so all those who matched the description in the near area, their families were informed and your mother was one of those people. I honestly thought it was you until the DNA test was back and I went straight back to searching but something changed then. I changed after that. Every single body that was found, I was obsessed, I would research them, I had an entire wall dedicated to every case, everything I could find on what had happened and I blurred them into what was happening with you. If it happened to one girl, I managed to convince myself that it had happened to you."

The man took a deep breath, as he tried to collect his thoughts but everything was blurring into one huge memory. The past three years were a mess, and the more he tried to talk about it, the more he was realising that nothing really made any sense – not the words that fell from his lips, not the thoughts that were in his head, not even the memories he held of the three years without her because it was just a mess. He was a mess, she was a mess, everything was a mess. "I know what you went through was hell, Hanna, I know that but... I went through hell as well. A different kind of hell, the hell that involved living without you. I just need you to know that I never want to go through that again, Hanna... I don't know what's going through your mind sometimes, but I can see it in your eyes. I can see that sometimes, a lot of the time, you don't really want to be here, I catch you staring down at your wrist and I have this fear that I'm going to wake up one day to you not being here anymore. Maybe it's selfish of me to ask you this, but if you're going to end the hell you've been through, Hanna, let me end mine at the same time, just... give me some kind of warning, okay? I can't do this without you."

Slowly, she nodded her head and gently moved to press her lips up against his before she pulled back, and he felt relieved that he had finally got those words out. "I love you." He finally whispered, pulling her even closer to him with the smallest of smiles on his faces because he had finally spoken the words he needed to, it wasn't everything that he had to tell her, there was still so much more but she knew enough for now and that just had to be enough.

The rest of the day was spent quietly, Hanna seemed to be constantly exhausted and in turn, Caleb was as well. He could barely sleep, he spent every moment she was sleeping reading the letters she had wrote for him and as time passed, he had learned so many things that he both never wanted to know but also needed to know. Charlotte had beaten his girlfriend more times than he would care to think about, at one point, she had held Hanna's head in freezing cold water until she almost passed out before she would lift her back out again, let her breathe for a few seconds before repeating it over and over again until Hanna was so sure she was going to die. She had woken up more than once with piles of food in her room, told she would have to eat every piece of it and then go to the bathroom to throw it all back up or her friends would suffer. And that was how his beautiful girlfriend had spent the past three years of her life – beaten, psychologically tortured, forced to relieve the days she had spent torturing herself as she forced herself to throw up.

He felt as though he was torturing himself reading each word but he had to know what she had been through. That was the biggest part of his own suffering when she was gone, never knowing what happened to her and now that he knew, he wondered if it was best to be left in the dark. He was now perpetually exhausted, his sleep filled with images of her sobbing in that room all by herself, he saw the way Charlotte treated her, every beating, every attempted drowning, every time she locked her in the room, every punishment Hanna had suffered through. He saw it all in his nightmares, but in them, he was right there with her. He was next to her, there was nothing binding him, he was just frozen to the spot and watching as she screamed, as she cried, and he stood there and did nothing other than call her name.

Her eyes were closed, his fingers tangled in her hair as he read the next page of her journal, slowly his fingers moved towards her wrist, moving his fingers over the biggest scar that seemed angry against her pale skin. The words on the pages he held in his hand were the closest he had to Hanna talking to him, so he clung to every single day, imagining the way her voice sounded in his head as he stared down at the words she had written for him and him only. He had shared few details with her mother, told her everything she needed to know – how Hanna had tried to kill herself more than once, how he worried that she would try again, how not speaking had been the only form of control she had and how Charlotte had tried to beat that control from her. He took a deep breath and tried to push the look of hurt on Ashley's face from his mind, as he turned the page and bit down on his lip.

 _Dear Caleb,_

 _I dreamt of you every night. I would crawl into the closet and I would curl up in a tight ball and my body was so exhausted, I would somehow manage to fall asleep. But my dreams would usually be filled with you. Being home with you, you'd wrap me in your arms and you would tell me I was safe and for those few hours, I would believe you. I would breathe you in, you would kiss me, you would hold me as close as you possibly could and I was okay. When I came back, you reminded me of those dreams... I felt safe with you, I do feel safe with you and maybe nothing is okay, but I think that maybe one day it could be._

 _I did something awful once... well, not once, but this really sticks out in my mind. I was taken to a room and A had a photograph of you and Emily. I had to choose between the two of you, I wasn't allowed to know what would happen to the person I chose but I knew it would never be good. A told me that I just had to press the button or all three of us would suffer the consequences. I picked Emily and I didn't see her three days afterwards, and when she did come back, I didn't recognise her. She had been beaten so badly, her face was swollen and she had spent a few days in the hole... that was that dark place I told you about, Mona spent much of her time there and so did Emily, and Spencer... Spencer more than anyone. I don't know what would have happened to you if I had chosen you... I never got over that guilt so the next time I was faced with a similar choice, I chose you. I let you get hurt the second time around because my guilt was too much from the time before. A never told me what she did to you, but she let me have a photograph of your bruised and bleeding face to let me know what I had done, the thing I had chosen. I'm so sorry, Caleb. I had so many choices to make in there and no matter what, it was always the wrong one._

 _Who was allowed to drink water that day? I tried to keep it even, Spencer one day, Aria the next, Emily the day after. I kept the same pattern when I was expected to hurt them; Spencer, then Aria, then Emily. Who did I love the most? Who could I watch suffer for the longest before I broke? Everything was a game, every single day we had to make a choice and I made the wrong one every single time. If the choice was there Caleb, I would have chosen myself every single time. If it was between my pain or your pain, I would choose mine because I know that I'm the cause of every hurt you have ever felt. I hate that I can never make that pain go away – I bet you wish you had never moved to Rosewood. Sometimes I wish that you hadn't, too because I want nothing more than for you to be happy. You're twenty-two years old now, you could be in a serious relationship with a normal, beautiful girl who deserves your love and attention, maybe you would have gone to college, maybe you'd be in New York, maybe you'd have a good life surrounded by good people. I'm so sorry that you had to meet me._

 _But I'm so thankful that you're in my life because I love you. I'm so sorry._

 _Love,_

 _Hanna._


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: So, this chapter is primarily from Caleb's point of view – I still need to map out the finer details of the next chapter so if, after reading this one, you have any ideas on how his plan is going to work out, please review and let me know! Full credit will of course apply to any idea I use.**

" _No one can tell what goes on in-between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out of the other side._

 _Or you don't." - Stephen King_

Caleb let out a scream of frustration before he slammed his hand against the metal bar that confined him to the small space. No one was paying him any attention, no one listened to his frustrated screams as he demanded he be let out, or at least be allowed a phone call. He insisted that he had done nothing wrong, perhaps he had broken a law or two but it was all for the sake of his girlfriend. His beautiful, amazing girlfriend who had already been through so much and now, because of him, she was going to be going through so much more.

He didn't trust the police, he never had and he was so sure he never would. They could have helped him and the girls all those years before but instead, they had chosen to sit on their asses and tell anyone who would listen that the four girls were just running away from the reality of their situation. They would capture the criminals and convict them as they needed to be. They would ensure that those dangerous criminals, who were suspected of murder, were where they needed to be – behind bars.

He slammed his hand against the bars once again and shook his head, "I thought you were doing arresting innocent people?!" He screamed through them, "You're pathetic. All of you!" He finally kicked at the bars that were between him and the love of his life before he turned his back and gripped onto his hair with a frustrated groan. It only took him a moment before he grabbed the mattress and threw it across the room, kicking at the bed that was in the corner before he fell to the floor and let out a broken sob.

He still had no idea how this new A had found out. It was meant to be a secret, but somehow, right under his nose, Spencer and Hanna were taken just like that. One minute they were there and the next... nothing. He had taken his eye off the ball for just a moment, he had allowed himself to relax when he should have been holding her closer than ever. And once again, she was gone and she was into the hands of someone who wanted revenge. This wasn't a case of someone who wanted dolls to play with, this wasn't as it was before. This time, she truly could be returning to him in a body bag within the next twenty-four hours and perhaps, that would be the best thing if this person had anything like Charlotte had done, planned for those two girls who had been through hell and back.

One minute, Hanna was in the yard and he had gone to grab them both something to drink but by the time he got back, she was gone. She had disappeared and despite the screaming he did, running around, looking for any trace of her, he knew that she hadn't simply just walked away from him. He could feel it with every fibre of his being – she had been stolen from him. Again. And now the police decided to arrest him because he had hacked into their system to see those crime scene photographs once again, looking for proof that someone had been in there with them. Someone other than Charlotte DiLaurentis.

He needed more suspects, he needed to know who the hell had his girlfriend and her best friend. He needed answers and he wasn't going to get it from the police and then, when he admitted he had only hacked them for the sole purpose of finding his missing, taken girlfriend, they had looked at him with a roll of their eyes and told him that they weren't going to fall for it. The Rosewood Police Department were going to pay for everything they had done since the day A had reared her ugly head. He was going to make sure that they paid for every time they never believed Hanna and the other girls, for every roll of their eyes, for every accusation, for every time they looked over the evidence that was staring them right in the face, for every murder they failed to solve, for everything they had done wrong that had caused Hanna, Spencer, Aria and Emily to suffer.

His dug his nails into the palm of his hand as he took a deep breath and settled his glare on the entrance of the cell they had thrown them into. If they found Hanna's body, he was going to make them all suffer. If Hanna was found alive and well, they would still suffer.

It was another few hours before they opened the door and he found himself being led out, as some officer muttered something about someone bailing him out but the police would be wanting to talk to him in the near future. Caleb didn't say a word as he just let his anger fuel every step he took towards Ashley Marin when he saw her waiting for him, he could hear the anger in her own voice as she screamed at Detective Tanner, reminding those that worked there how incompetent each and every single one of them were. Her daughter was missing _again_ and instead of looking for her, they were arresting her boyfriend for trying to find her.

The red head took Caleb's hand the moment he was within reach and her glare settled on the Detective, "We're going to find my daughter because you're never going to and when we do, I won't forget that you forced Caleb to waste sixteen hours in this place for trying to do your job. I'll take this as far as I need to go, I'll get all the money I need to get the best lawyer and I will destroy you. All of you. But especially you, _Detective_ Tanner." She emphasised the word with a small smirk on her face, as she gave the woman a look up and down, showing her disbelief that she had ever earned the title in the first place.

With that, he felt himself being dragged out of there, but not before he managed to put his finger up at the red faced woman who looked as though she was trying to control her own anger. He was sure if she could arrest Ashley for anything she said, she would have but she knew the risk of further humiliation would be too much. As he stood outside, it was not the first time that he considered burning down the entire building with each officer in it so Rosewood Police would get the chance to start again. Toby could rejoin, others would come in, people who could do their jobs, who could help those people that needed it the most.

And then he caught himself, for just a split second because he realised that everything that had happened had caused him to become someone he never thought he would be. Someone who had the darkest of thoughts, someone who would murder anyone who hurt the person he loved so much.

He could sense the anger from the older Marin, even when they had left the building and were walking down the street towards her car. He knew it was coming but he was still shocked when her hand dropped from his and she turned to face him, her hands on her hips and the kind of look that a mother would give her son before she told him off. That was what she was to him after all, she was like another mother, a better mother than his own had been. "What the hell were you thinking? You know you have a criminal record, Caleb, you know that you could go to jail. You have a suspended sentence, for gods sake!" They had not spoken about that, not since Hanna had come back months ago but he knew she was right. The last time he had been arrested and brought in front of a judge, there was enough sympathy that meant he wasn't about to be thrown in jail but not enough that would give him another bout of community service. Two years on a suspended sentence, if he breached any of the conditions, if he committed another crime, he would be brought back up in front of the judge and this would be reconsidered. He could go to jail. He just got Hanna back and if she was returned to him in one piece, then he would be the one to be taken from her.

He just sighed and ran his fingers through his hair before he shook his head, "I love her, I don't see right when she's in danger and right now, she's gone and it's my fault. I never should have left her alone, I never should have thought she was safe!" He was frustrated, and upset, and not for the first time, he started to cry in front of the woman who was quick to dispel her own anger to wrap her arms around him when tears of her own fell. "They're no good to me, to her... they would never help, even if they knew how to. I had to do something, I had to anything I possibly could to bring her home and they just wasted sixteen hours!"

He was broken, more broken than he had let on since Hanna had been returned to him. He had longed to be strong, he wanted to be there for Hanna, he wanted to make sure she felt safe and loved despite what she had been through but he could feel himself breaking every single second of every single day. When he was alone, he'd wipe at the tears that would find their way down his face, when he was in the shower it was the only time he'd truly let himself feel the weight of what had happened reign down on him. He loved her so much; the more he read about the time she had spent in that place, the more he felt himself shattering. How he longed to be strong for her, and for Ashley and for himself, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it up.

Once he got back to the house, he moved to the bedroom he shared with Hanna without another word, feeling defeated and more alone than he ever had. She wasn't waiting for him when he got back to the room and it broke him, but instead, her diary was on the bed where he had left it that morning and he soon found himself sitting on the bed, with it in his hands as he took a deep breath. Her words broke him, but at the same time, they managed to console him, give him comfort that even though she couldn't – or wouldn't – speak, she still loved him enough to tell him what she had been through. Writing it down was easier for her, and the words on the page was for his eyes only, staring with the Dear Caleb and always ending with the fact that she was forever his, or that she loved him. His fingers moved over the tear stained page of the last thing she had written, his fingers moving over the way she had signed her name with a small smile on his face. He couldn't read those words yet, not if they were the last ones she ever wrote to him but he read the last few words – I am so deeply in love with you – over and over again before he placed it carefully on the side and moved to pick his computer back up.

It was then, for the first time, he picked up his phone and scrolled through the messages that had been left for him during his time behind bars. Mostly from Toby or Emily, he stopped on one from an unknown number and his heart stopped when he was met with a photograph of the woman he loved so much; he could see bruises on her shoulder, a scared look on her face, her desperation...

 _I wonder if she'll scream for me at the end, if she'll beg me not to kill her?_

Those were the words attached to the photograph and he wanted to throw his phone against the nearest wall before he looked through his messages once again, finding another message but this time, from Toby.

 _I just got a picture of Spencer, he says he's going to kill them for what they did to Charlotte. We did some investigating of our own... Jenna is back, along with Noel and Sara Harvey. We're going to keep an eye on them at the Radley. I'll keep you updated._

Four hours later, he had received another message; _Sara Harvey is dead, fell in the shower apparently._

The puzzle pieces seemed to fit together in his mind and he rubbed his eyes, before he sent a text to the one person who would probably help him with the mess he had found himself in. His hands trembled as he sent the message, watching the tick come up once it had been read, and then the reply that was being sent back. He only waited a minute before he read the words on the screen and he nodded his head. A plan was forming, he was going to get Hanna and Spencer home safe no matter what it took.

 _It might work but I don't know... I'll try. You honestly think if I reach out they'll believe me?_

He sighed and quickly typed back, _If we don't try something, whoever this is is going to murder Hanna and Spencer. Maybe if you pretend to be on their side... she was your sister. You're the only one who could pull this off._

He took a moment before he started to type again, _And delete these messages. Don't tell anyone what you plan on doing, not even Emily or Aria. I'll be there the entire time, I won't let anything happen to you._

When she didn't reply, he knew she had done as he said and he took a deep breath, doing the same with his own messages before he looked around the room one last time. If Hanna was gone, he wasn't sure he would ever be able to come back here, not without feeling that overwhelming sense of loss that would be so final. Throwing some stuff into a bag, including her diary, he sighed and closed the door behind him once he left. Downstairs, he only took a moment to scribble a note to the woman he assumed to be in her own room, before he headed to the door.

 _I'm going to do everything I can to get her back. Please trust me. I love both of you so much – you're both the family I always wanted._


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: For those who are triggered by mentions of eating disorders, drug use and rape, please be warned that this chapter does contain mentions of these subjects. Thank you very much for the reviews so far and please read and review to let me know what you think! Apologies in advance if this is awful, or not what people wanted/expected but I promise so much Haleb in the next chapter to make up for it.**

 **casket4mytears - thank you very much for your kind review! Chevy Stevens is one of my favourite authors at the moment so I'm a little obsessed with using her, she is amazing.**

" _Wired up, mind all over the place, looking for answers, reasons, something solid to cling to, something real, but just when I think I've got it all figured out and neatly filed under fixed instead of fucked, turns out I'm still shattered, scattered and battered. But you probably already knew that, didn't you? You might not be able to help me. That makes me sad, but not for me. It makes me sad for you." - Chevy Stevens_

From the moment her eyes opened, Hanna knew exactly where she was. The grey, old walls, the bars over the windows, the _smell,_ there was no mistake that she was in Radley Sanitarium. Spencer had been the only one of them to spend any time there, so when she had woken up just a few moments after, Hanna could tell by the look on her face that she recognised the place instantly. Whilst Hanna sat there with her arms wrapped around her knees, huddled in the corner of the old bed with her back to the wall, Spencer screamed and slammed her hands against the door until they bled.

For a while, they sat there, the only sound in the room was their heavy breathing and broken sobs. Before the familiar voice they had only ever heard in the dollhouse caused them both to tense up and stare at each other, for the first time realising that Charlotte was not alone in that place, she was not the only person who spent years torturing them. "I thought it was about time you know how Charlotte felt, locked in this room for years and years with nobody. How long will you last before you break?" Her entire body trembled and she shook her head, closing her eyes as tightly as she possibly could, trying to hide further into the corner before she let out a sob.

A – or Charlotte – had consumed their lives for way too long, primarily for the past three years and now, this was how it was going to end. It had come full circle; Charlotte wanted dolls, and so, she created them into those broken dolls she had so craved when she had nothing throughout her childhood. She had abused them for years, tortured them, bent them in half, ruined them, only for Hanna and Spencer to finally get the upper hand and put an end to it all. And now, the consequence of that had resulted in her being locked in a room with her best friend for what was probably going to be their final days.

At the sound of Spencer crying, Hanna opened her mouth to speak but the words died in her throat. Not only could she not speak, but honestly, Hanna didn't know if there was anything she could possibly say in that moment to make the brunette feel any better about how it was all going to end. Instead, she took in the surroundings – the room was small, with a single bed in the corner that she was sitting on, an empty desk on the other side of the room, without a chair. Everything seemed normal for the rooms she had imagined for a mental hospital, except for the large television in the corner of the room, covered with a large, plastic box to stop them from grabbing it and using it as a weapon, she supposed. There was one window in the room, covered with bars, meaning their own means of escape was immediately gone. Was there even any point?

"Hanna?" Spencer finally spoke, as she moved over to her best friend and sat next to her, resting her head on her shoulder as her eyes closed. She felt Hanna shift beside her, meaning she was listening, "Don't give up, not yet." She whispered, "If I can find a way to get us out of this, I will... and don't forget, Caleb, Toby, our friends... our parents, they'll be looking for us." Slowly, her fingers moved through blonde hair and Hanna only pulled back a little to give her a small smile before her hand moved to touch her cheek gently, grazing along there to wipe gently at the tears that were starting to dry on Spencer's pale cheeks.

There was a silence that followed, one she had become accustomed to when she was alone with Hanna. Sometimes, Aria would just speak to fill it, Emily would mumble here and there but with Hanna, there was no uncomfortable small talk that had to be forced in an attempt to make themselves feel better. Instead, they could hold each other, silent tears falling down their face as Spencer watched the moon rising through the bars. When the morning light appeared, she would make a mark on the wall to indicate another countdown – something she thought was behind her when she had left that awful bunker she had been forced into three years previously. When the brunette finally closed her eyes, she tried to remember what Hanna's voice sounded like, but the memory wouldn't come to her. She had forgotten, it seemed as though the beautiful sound of her best friends voice was something else Charlotte had stolen from them.

* * *

Caleb had no idea if this plan was going to work but it was all he had, it was all he could cling to because he couldn't imagine going another three years without knowing what had happened to his girlfriend. Alison was all he had, and that was something he never thought would happen – he had made it no secret that he didn't like or trust the girl that seemed to be the link between Charlotte and the girls, but she was his only way in. Charlotte was her sister, and if she could just, for even a second, convince the person behind this that she was on their side. Alison was a good actress, that much she knew but maybe she had done too much for whoever was behind this to believe her. Maybe he was destined to live a life looking for the woman he loved so much, without ever knowing what she was going through or if she was even okay. If she was alive.

He rubbed his tired eyes, before he looked down at his shaking hands; he had no idea what was happening to her right then but he knew, if she was still alive, then she was terrified. She had already been through hell and back and now, she was there once again and he was on the outside, feeling as helpless as he had for three years. The plan was simple – Alison would convince them that she was on their side, they would trust her, he would follow them. Perhaps it was too simple, he reminded himself, for a moment as he shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh.

For now, he had to wait and that was the part that was frustrating him the most because for every minute, and every hour it took for Alison to convince this dangerous person that she was on their side, was another hour Spencer and Hanna were in danger. He closed his eyes for a second, terrified that the two women that would be returned to them even worse than they had been before. To think of his girlfriend even more shattered than she already was, tore him apart inside. He had already caught her looking at institutes on the internet, it seemed as though she knew the talks her therapist was having behind her back to her mother, she knew where the recommended place she was supposed to be was. A part of him believed that she would have preferred to be there – it was safer, he supposed without the pressure of having loved ones around her willing her to talk. Without the knowledge of what she was like before, there was no chance for the doctors, or the nurses or other patients to feel saddened by the loss of the old Hanna Marin.

His fingers ran through his hair and his eyes glanced up at Alison stepping out of her car when another car pulled over – this was it, this had to be it. At this point, it had already been three days, and two of them had been spent with Alison trying to convince A.D that she was, indeed, on their side and as a consequence, she wanted revenge on the two people who had murdered her long lost sister. She had described the anger she felt, how they had never even given Charlotte a chance to explain her side, how the DiLaurentis girl hadn't been given a chance her entire life. Each word was taken in by the unknown person, or persons, and eventually, there had been a settled time to meet and talk. Ali and Caleb knew this wasn't it though, this would be a test, to see how angry she truly was at the two women and if it meant she could join the A team. Caleb had no idea what was going to happen but he knew it was their only chance at finding the two women before it was too late.

* * *

When Spencer made a mark on the wall behind her to signify the beginning of the third day, she wondered if this was the plan. To make them rot, starve and dehydrate in the room Charlotte DiLaurentis had once stayed in. They had yet to see the person who had taken them and since, not a single glass of water, or any food had been left in the room for them. It terrified her, the thought of dying slowly and painfully; she knew what was going to happen to their bodies, how organs were going to start to shut down. She figured they had around four days left – it took seven to ten days before the point of death but she and Hanna were skin and bones. Even leaning against the other was uncomfortable, Hanna's collarbones jutted out, Spencer's cheekbones protruded, their ribs seemed to clash against each other's when they snuggled into the other for some form of comfort. Perhaps if they had more body mass between them, they could have lasted longer, perhaps long enough for someone to rescue them from this new hell.

Somehow, the anticipation of new torture was worse than many of the things Charlotte had put them through. Every so often, her eyes would glance at the door and she would wait for someone to just walk in and do their very worst to them. Right then, with each day that passed, they were getting sicker, exhaustion was kicking in and whilst Spencer was on high alert, Hanna seemed to spend most of the day sleeping. Despite her silence promise that she wouldn't give up, it appeared as though she already had, but Spencer suspected the blonde had given up long before they were stolen from the lives in which they were attempting to heal and move on.

* * *

Alison DiLaurentis found herself sitting in the back seat of a car, next to Noel Kahn, her eyes staring at the laptop screen in front of her. There was a proud smirk on his face but all she felt was nauseated by the images he was showing her on the screen – this was the test, the true test to see how loyal she was to the cause and she knew she had to pass because if she didn't, she had no idea what was going to happen to her or her friends. She glanced at the man next to her and remembered that she had once read, if a kidnapper showed his face, the less likely the chance the victim had of getting out of it alive. And whilst she wasn't being kidnapped, it was no secret that Noel would much rather keep his identity hidden from her friends, especially now that she had learned he was much more involved with Charlotte and her plans than anyone knew.

The crazy thing was, she supposed, was that he would have gotten away with it if he hadn't been so obsessed with Charlotte.

So, she kept silent as she watched him pouring blood over Spencer and over the floor, a smirk and a dangerous glint in his eyes when he looked up at the camera. It was her first look at the room Spencer had spent much of her time in when she was locked down there, and she was forced to watch Spencer screaming, panic, as she wondered what the hell she had done and who she had hurt with no idea that it was the blood of a dead animal. She could see the look in her eyes, Spencer truly thought she had hurt someone, that she had murdered someone...

Noel watched her face carefully, and Ali was sure to show little to no emotion, watching instead as he flicked over onto another file within the folder named Spencer. It was the brunette, sitting at a table in a room with pills in front of her. Her hands were over her ears, and she was rocking herself back and forth as a voice repeated itself over and over again – 'take the pills and the screaming will stop, take the pills and the screaming will stop'. Ali knew that Spencer had struggled with addiction, and she had no doubt that the medication in front of her at that moment was the same she had previously had issues with. She watched for five more minutes until Spencer gave in and grabbed the pills, before Noel smirked and shut it off, "She took those pills every single day, multiple times a day until..." The cursor flashed over another file before he clicked on it and there Spencer was; sweating, thinner than she had been before, her arms wrapped around herself as she laid on the floor of her 'bedroom', "It was fun to watch her squirm."

Ali just let out a small laugh, but didn't say anything as she watched him move towards the folder entitled Hanna. "You helped us with Hanna, it was so easy to make her stick her fingers down her throat again." He laughed, and Alison looked at him, trying to stop the urge to punch him in the face when she was reminded of the things she had done and the things she had said before everything had gone so horribly wrong. Instead, she matched his smirk and just shrugged her shoulders, "Glad to be of service."

When the new video started up, she swallowed a lump of bile that rose in her throat, but just watched, telling herself over and over again that she couldn't burst into tears right then, not if she ever wanted to see her best friends again. Hanna was what looked to be like her bedroom but Ali knew otherwise, she was unconscious, and Noel was there with that smirk she wanted to permanently remove from his face. He looked up at the camera, winked and then his fingers grazed along the inside of Hanna's thigh; when she didn't move, Alison watched as he unzipped his pants before she looked away and let out a nervous laugh, "I don't need to see the rest," She told him, "As satisfying as it is knowing they deserved it in the end, I don't really want to see that..." He nodded in understanding and shut down the laptop as he observed her reactions.

Had she passed the test? When he smiled, she was certain she had, until he asked, "Do you want to be there when I show them these tapes? They don't have long left..." He trailed off, and she nodded her head, "I'd love to see their faces when those bitches find out everything that happened to them."

Her reply seemed to satisfy him, and he climbed out of the car, "We'll have to go now, I always knew you would be on the right side Ali but I can't risk you blabbing to any of your friends about this not until I've done what needs to be done." She nodded her head and climbed out after him, before she moved to climb into the front seat of the car along with Noel, hoping Caleb was close enough to know what was going on. He was going to follow but not until it wasn't suspicious, thanks to the GPS on her phone. Somehow, the guilt eased that she hadn't been able to find them three years ago, because for once, she knew she had done something good, something that would put an end to this before it was too late. She wouldn't let it be three years again.

* * *

When the television started up for the first time since they had been there, Spencer sat up quickly and stared at the screen, immediately recognising herself as she already felt her heart facing. The memories of those three years came rushing back to her, how she had been kept hooked on drugs for almost a year before it wad decided she should go cold turkey. It was hell, the kind of hell that kept her from going back to the drugs the moment she had gotten out because she couldn't stand to go through withdrawals again.

Her entire body shook as she watched herself on the screen, before the worst she had ever felt appeared and she watched herself covered in blood, screaming, wondering who she had hurt. Blacking out when she was on something was something she had grown accustomed to, the fear she had hurt someone as a result was also something she had experienced before. Living with that thought since had been the cause of so many of her nightmares – now, knowing it was Noel Kahn pouring animal blood over her and the room, she felt sick. She had been tricked, she had been forced to be an addict again and then tricked to break her. And it had worked.

When it stopped, and instead, their eyes met with an unconscious Hanna laying in the bed of the room that had been so carefully made to look like the one she had pre-kidnapping, those thoughts were pushed to the back of her mind when she watched Noel Kahn move onto the bed where Hanna laid, unmoving. She could feel her best friend shaking beside her as it continued, and out of respect, she looked away and focused on the pale face of the blonde who didn't make a move, or say a word until the video ended and the images were replaced with footage of them at the beginning. Hanna's voice echoed through the empty room, the sassiness Spencer had forgotten almost made her smile until she remembered, for a second, what had happened to her friend, to all of them in that place. There was video proof, evidence of everything that they had gone through, things she had forgotten, things she hadn't been allowed to remember and the same for each of her friends. She could tell by the look on Hanna's face that she had no idea that anything had happened to her whilst they were in that place, not like that – why would they? Charlotte was the only suspect they had.

It took an hour for the video to finally stop, reminders of their three years there echoing through their minds whilst neither of them broke the silence. Spencer never expected her to speak, she had long since given up on the fact that her friend still had a voice hidden deep inside of her but now she found herself unable to find any words, nothing she could say would be right. Hanna's hand finally moved to her own and she looked at the blonde, brushing her hair from her face, watching the internal struggle before, after so long, she heard the voice she never thought she would hear again. It was soft, raspy, her throat raw from years of not saying a word, the voice sounding foreign to both of them, "I never knew." Was all she was able to get out before the tears fell, and she shook her head, "I never knew." She repeated, a little louder this time as she was trying to get used to the words that fell from her lips.

"There's so much we don't know, Hanna." She mumbled in response, pressing her lips to her forehead as her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around her best friend to pull her as close as she could. Only a few moments passed before, for the first time since they had gotten there, the door swung open and she was met with the dark eyes of Noel Kahn, a dangerous smirk on his face as he looked at the two, "Did you enjoy the show?"

He watched with amusement when they both scrambled to their feet, Hanna hiding slightly behind Spencer as she just shook her head. He took a step towards them, they stepped back and then Hanna stopped. Her entire body tensed and she grabbed Spencer's arm to pull her back, "Tell Caleb I love him." She whispered in her ear, leaving a moment of confusion for the brunette before Hanna lunged forward with a scream and punched the man in the face as hard as her tiny, exhausted body could. She didn't stop though, her hands got in as many punches as she could whilst Noel fumbled for his weapon and Spencer hesitated. Her eyes glanced towards the open door and she considered running for help, but she knew in that time, it could all be over for Hanna or, she could help her. Only, by the time her brain registered this, Noel's clenched fist made contact with the blonde's face, and she fell to the floor, her eyes closed and her body unmoving and his attention turned to the brunette who had missed the opportunity to get help whilst she could.

Her head shook and her eyes watered, and Noel stepped towards her, "Don't you want to know more about what we did to you in there? Don't you want to remember more?" She quickly shook her head and took a deep breath, her back making contact with the wall behind her, watching his hand move towards the knife he had kept contained in his pocket, "Maybe it would be kinder to end it for the two of you now."

Neither of them heard the sound of someone walking down the hallway, towards the open door, not until it was too late. The knife was pressed to her throat, digging into the skin there until she could feel a drop of blood and her eyes had been closed, willing death to come and take her into it's arms so she could finally move on with her life. Her momentary pause had cost both hers and Hanna's life, and she would never be able to relay the message of Hanna's last words to the person who deserved to hear them; those were her regrets but there was no fear. Death seemed easier, better, simpler.

The sound of a gun cocking brought her back to reality though and when her eyes snapped open, she was met with the dark eyes of Caleb Rivers, Alison at his side as she stared at the three people in the room with a mixture of shock, fear and guilt in her eyes. She had no idea how they had been found, and she struggled with the emotions that immediately ran through her mind – the first one being the wish that they had shown up a few minutes later, when it was too late for her but just in time for Hanna who deserved to live a life away from Rosewood. She took a deep, trembling breath and watched as Noel turned around, the knife dropping when he held his hands up, meeting Caleb's cold, hard stare. The way he looked terrified Spencer in that moment, Caleb was her friend, she had seen him upset, she had heard Hanna talk about him being angry, but this was something else. There was nothing but hatred in his eyes and the youngest Hastings knew that he would murder Noel Kahn right there and then if he was given the chance, she just wasn't sure if it would be the right thing to do.

"I-is she dead?" Caleb stuttered, looking down at his girlfriend on the floor, keeping the gun trained on the other man as Alison stepped towards Hanna and pressed her fingers against her neck, shaking her head, "She's alive, just knocked out. She's going to be okay." There were tears threatening to make their way down Caleb's face, and his hand shook slightly but he kept the gun aimed at his intended target.

"She's never going to be okay again," He quickly said, before he stepped forward and pressed the gun against Noel's forehead with such bruising force, Spencer could see the pain on the suddenly silent man's face. She supposed having a gun aimed at him was enough to keep him silent. "You disgust me," Caleb spat, "You don't deserve to breathe, even jail would be too good for you!" Spencer moved forward, a gentle hand placed on his arm as she shook her head, silently begging for him not to do this.

His finger pressed against the trigger, the hatred in his eyes overtaking everything right then, the sound of the gun going off, along with the scream that came from Spencer seemed to echo around the room before the eventual thud of a body landing on the floor seemed to bring Caleb back to reality and the gun dropped to his feet, his eyes staring down at the blood, his breathing heavy and panicked as he shook his head, "W-what have I done?" He mumbled, mostly to himself as he took a step back and gulped, staring at the scene in front of him, before his eyes settled on the blonde who was slowly opening her eyes, "What did I do?" He asked again, this time desperately seeking an answer from Alison who shook her head and let out a sob.

"You ended it."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Thank you for all the reviews, I hope this chapter is something you all enjoy and please don't forget to review, you've no idea how much inspiration each one gives me and how much I enjoy reading each and every one.**

 **Also, KateEals – totally not the weirdest review, thank you very much! I work within the same environment, so my only concern is the differences between the American justice system and the British but hopefully, w a little research, I will try my very best to ensure everything is as accurate as I could possibly get.**

" _If life were fair, we would never have suffered what we suffered at all; having suffered it and survived, we're still reacting to things that don't exist anymore."_

" _But they did."_

" _Yes. I hate that they still define me... I want that to change. I don't know how to change it but I'm willing to spend the rest of my life trying... Home is a strange thing."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _We lose it, and we think it's gone forever. That's how I felt the first time I lost mine. It took my years to understand that I could find – and make – another. I couldn't do it on my own tough; I don't think – for me – home exists in isolation." - Michelle Sagara West_

There were arms wrapped around her, soft words being whispered, as lips pressed to her hair. She could smell that familiar scent she had come to love so much – stale cigarettes, mixed with the expensive aftershave she had bought him every year for Christmas before she was gone. Her eyes were still closed, but her hand moved to grip blindly at his shirt, and her head moved to hide in his chest as she just took a moment to breathe him in before she dared to open her eyes and look up at the man who was shaking against her touch.

When she did, she saw the tears falling down his face and slowly, she lifted a hand to wipe at the tears she could reach before she gently gripped at his jaw and pulled his face down a little, just so their eyes could meet, "I love you," She whispered, her voice hoarse from years of no use, her throat beginning to ache when she was reminded of the strain it seemed to have on her body. Speaking, it came so naturally to those around her and once, it had been so natural to her but now it seemed foreign. She could see the confusion flash in his eyes, as though he had barely remembered how she spoke, before the recognition settled in and he gave her a small smile.

"I love you too," He mumbled, his lips moving down to press against her nose, avoiding the large cut on her forehead, "I need you to listen to me, okay? I just need you to know how much I love you and that no matter what happens, no matter how much time we spend apart, I will always, always love you. I'd do anything for you, Hanna Marin." She was left feeling empty when he pulled away, only for his arms to be replaced by other ones as he came to a stand, his arms in the air, waiting for someone.

Hanna had been so focused on him, she hadn't heard the crashing of the police entering the building, she barely heard the shouts of 'clear' with each room they double checked. She could barely register what was going on until Detective Tanner walked into the room with her gun raised, and pointed at Caleb. Her heart thumped against the chest and she shook her head, before the man she loved spoke, a lack of emotion in the words, "There's a moment when you're forced to take action because no one else will, I guess this was my moment."

Finally, her eyes moved to look around the room, confused by what had happened in the time she had been unconscious, wondering how much time had even passed between then and now. Ali had her arms around her, she could feel the other woman trembling as she did, but Hanna's eyes met with Spencer's for just a second before she looked at the source of the blood that covered her best friend, only to be met with the unmoving body of the man who had tortured them, without them even suspecting him, for years. It didn't take a genius to work out what had happened between the time he had knocked her out and the time she had woken up but still, seeing Tanner tuck her weapon away and instead, bring out some handcuffs, left Hanna shaking her head with tears in her eyes.

She had gotten so used to being the one who was taken, not the one who was left behind, she had never imagined it would hurt so badly to know that there was nothing she could do. The words the Detective spoke were just a blur as she read the man his rights, and arrested him for the murder of Noel Kahn. There was no loss, Hanna bitterly thought as she looked over at him, but still, she didn't say a word as instead, she clung to the other blonde and closed her eyes tightly, as though somehow, that would remove her from the hell she had found herself in. It was that same day she had been silently saying her goodbyes to the man who was being pushed out of the room by a woman on a mission, a woman who wanted to look as though she was the hero when really, she had done nothing. Hanna had been so certain that she was the one who would be leaving him, she had never allowed herself to think of the situation being turned around and instead, she would be the one watching him walk out of the door. Being _forced_ out of the door.

"No," She whispered, the tears falling fast and heavy as she continued to shake her head, "C-come back, no..." Alison held her tighter, pulled her even closer as she hid her face in Hanna's hair and closed her own eyes, trying to whisper words of comfort through her own tears. The only saving grace was that it was over, and the three women, along with Aria and Emily owed their lives to Caleb.

* * *

The blonde ran her fingers through her hair, lifting the cigarette to her lips before she inhaled, and closed her eyes at the relief that seemed to run through her with the very first smoke. Hanna Marin had a history of bad habits but she had never thought smoking would be one of them, but they reminded her of him. The smell that would linger on her clothes (his clothes, she mentally corrected herself, as she looked down at the shirt that hung from her tiny frame), was the closest thing to comfort she could get.

She quickly wiped at a tear that fell down her face, shaking her head at herself when she thought about the court case that was coming up. It had been over a month since Caleb had fatally shot Noel Kahn and whilst she wasn't sorry, and neither were her friends, unfortunately his family held a lot of power in the town and they wanted justice. Voluntary manslaughter by means of provocation was the charge Caleb was facing – and with his criminal history, the fact he was on a suspended sentence and the serious nature of the crime, it didn't look good. No amount of witness statements the girls attempted to give could erase the fact that the police simply didn't believe it fell under the remit of self-defence.

Hanna could only hope that Spencer's eye witness account, the scar from the knife that had cut her throat ever so slightly, the fact that Noel was going to kill her if Caleb hadn't protected her, would be enough. Caleb's lawyer would argue that he was clouded by anger, guilt, sadness – he had just found out his girlfriend had been raped, his girlfriend had been kidnapped for the second time and no one would believe him. It could be argued that the emotional toil of the past three years, and the trauma caused by Hanna going missing a second time, was enough of an explanation.

Or simply, if the knife hadn't been pressed to the throat of one of his friends, if Noel hadn't been goading him on, if he hadn't just found out from Alison ten minutes prior, that there was video footage of Noel Kahn raping Hanna when she was missing, then it would not have ended the way it had. Maybe he'd serve time for carrying an unlicensed weapon, but that would be significantly less than the time he would spend behind bars if he was found guilty of the charge he was currently up against. Three to five years, in the very least, up to eleven if the judge was feeling particularly petty that day. But no matter what, Hanna knew she would wait – he had spent three years of his life waiting for her, if she had to repay that, then she would.

She drew her knees to her chest, and wrapped an arm around them before she let out a breath of smoke, her eyes opening to watch it float away before she repeated the motion just seconds later. Of all the bad habits she had developed over the years, at least this was one that offered her some form of comfort.

* * *

It was late. Hanna had her eyes closed, feeling the soft breeze against her face as she wrapped her arms around herself. It was late at night when she missed Caleb the most, she missed the way his arms would wrap around her and she would feel so safe. How somehow, his lips pressed against her forehead would stop some of the darkest thoughts. She missed everything about him. Her blue eyes only opened when she heard the sound of someone walking towards her, tensing for just a second until she recognised the figure. The red head moved slowly, and Hanna could tell how exhausted she was – she was on the phone Caleb's lawyer for hours every single day, and when she wasn't speaking to him, then she was phoning up the media, hoping someone would listen to their story and someone who meant something would do something about it. She was fighting for Caleb in a way Hanna couldn't, and Hanna knew that once he was out of that place and he was back where he belonged, they would do everything they could to make it up to Ashley.

"How are you feeling?" She asked Hanna the same thing every day and most of the time, she would get a shrug of the shoulders, a one or two word response. Whilst she had found her voice, she still struggled; she could still go days without saying a word because everything else had been stolen from her. She had sat in a room with her therapist who had told her it was a coping mechanism, the one thing she could control that no one else could. The stress of Caleb being taken away from her had left her standing on the edge once again, looking down at the darkness she so wanted to dive into, but she kept glancing behind her – at her friends, and her family, at Caleb who she was supposed to help, who she was supposed to wait for.

For the first time, Hanna knew her mother needed some form of honesty, she needed her to be open with her, even if it meant Hanna didn't respond to the question again. She could see the desperation in her eyes, hear it in her voice, she wanted to give her _something_ in an attempt to prove that maybe one day she would be okay. "I feel..." Hanna sighed, her trembling fingers making a move for the cigarette pack she had placed on the table, shaking as she attempted to light it before she glanced at her mother, taking a long, deep drag of the cigarette as she tried to collect her thoughts. "Every single time I should be happy, I should be able to move on, something else happens, you know? When we killed Charlotte and left that place, I thought that was it, I would deal with the trauma and I would be able to move on with my life, the nightmare was over, the monster was dead. But then it turned out the monster wasn't dead, because it had been plural, and he wanted revenge."

She took a deep breath, "And he got it, god... he got it but then he was gone and it should have been over then. I should be happier now, I should be able to say I'm going to move on with my life but I can't because the man I love, the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, is locked up because he tried to protect me and my best friend. He could be behind bars for eleven years, if the judge is a complete asshole and... he didn't do anything wrong." She was frustrated, upset, angry and her hatred for the criminal justice system was only increasing with every day that passed and Caleb was still there.

Before her mother could speak, she just looked at her and gave her a small, sad smile as the tears fell down her face, "Is trauma really trauma if you don't remember it?" She questioned, voicing the one thing she had been thinking since she had found out what Noel had done to her whilst she was unconscious and completely unaware of the world around her. At that, Ashley gave a quick nod of her head and moved to grasp Hanna's hand in her own, trying to find the words that would make it a little better but she knew nothing ever could.

"I think it happened, Hanna and the knowledge that it happened, whether you remember it or not, is enough. He did something truly awful to you, and you deserve to feel anything you want about that." Hanna squeezed the other woman's hand when she saw the tears that fell down her own pale face; when she had been in the dollhouse, she had thought all the time of the effect it would be having on the people who loved her, the people they had all left behind but it was different being faced with it. She could see the years that had been added to her beautiful mother's face, she could see the way the sadness, the regret and the anger that would so often flare in her eyes. If it hadn't been Caleb with that gun that day, if Ashley had been the one to find out where Hanna was being kept, the blonde had no doubt that it would have ended in a similar manner. The inevitability of losing someone she loved so much was daunting, and terrifying.

"We're going to fight this, Hanna. Even if they find him guilty this time, we'll fight it and we'll fight it and we'll carry on until someone sees that what he did was the right thing." Hanna only nodded her head, "I promised him when I last spoke to him that you would be my number one priority and I've been letting that promise down with everything that has been going on but I promise you, Hanna, you are my entire world and I will do everything I can for you and right now, I know the best thing in the world will be for you to get Caleb back. So I'm going to make sure I don't fail you on that because... we both need him."

The young woman didn't say another word, silently thanking the two people who had meant so much to her, for being there for each other. They could have so easily given up, fallen apart, drifted apart until she was found but she could see the strength their relationship had and she was just thankful that when they couldn't have her, they had found each other.

* * *

It seemed as though he had been fighting all of his life – when he was younger, going through the system, from one foster parent to the next, he fought as much as he possibly could to not end up as so many had before him. Then he found himself fighting for so much more – he had finally found his family, his home, but he had to watch his home being torn down slowly, piece by piece every single day with each text message, every new threat, every little event that cumulated into the years she had spent away from him.

He had been clinging onto his own life for so long, and for the first time, he was so tired of fighting for something he should have had. It had reached the point when, just as he thought nothing bad could happen because it already had, there was something else to add to the mix. He let out a groan of frustration as he let his head drop to his hands, wishing he could just turn his thoughts off. Thinking of Hanna and the fact she was dealing with what happened to her without him right where he belonged, thinking of how he wanted nothing more than to be on the outside, where he _belonged._

He held back the tears, ignoring the pain in his chest as he bit down harshly on her bottom lip. He couldn't cry, not there, because crying meant weakness and if he ever wanted to get back to Hanna, then he would have to be strong. Or at least, make his fellow prisoners think he was strong. If he closed his eyes, he would see the look on Alison's face, how pale she was, how she had been sobbing when he found her, the smell of vomit pungent in the air when he got a little closer to the blonde he had once hated and blamed, but would now hold her in high regard. She helped him find Hanna and that was all he could think of right then – getting to the blonde, wrapping her in his arms and telling her it was going to be okay.

The weapon he had brought for him was more for threat than actual use, although he knew he would not hesitate to pull the trigger should Noel give him good reason. There was no thought for the consequence, not when he was doing the job that the police should have done in the first place. They had let his girlfriend down, they had let her friends down, they had even let Charlotte down, and they had let him and the people who had been left behind down as well. Who'd have thought they'd turn to arresting him in an attempt to make it look as though they had done something.

The words Alison had spoken to him that day still repeated through his mind, _he showed me what he did to them, what he did to Hanna... he raped her, Caleb, the bastard raped her and he was proud of himself,_ and he closed his eyes even tighter, quickly covering his mouth with his hand as he suppressed the scream that so longed to escape his throat. The rage he had felt that day still burned through him as though he was right there, and he could feel the cool metal of the gun, he could hear every step he took towards the only open door in the entire place and he could still hear the sound of Noel's voice. In his mind, he murdered him over and over again, saw the blood, watched as his body crumpled to the floor and each time, he felt nothing. No remorse, no regret, nothing – perhaps, he thought, that should have concerned him but after everything he had been through, after everything Hanna had been through, he finally got the justice he knew Rosewood Police never would have sought.

Temporary insanity was what his lawyer had been recently discussing as a plea bargain; Caleb had been literally driven insane by the three years he had spent looking for his girlfriend and her friends, the rage he had felt from that time spent never knowing what happened to her or if she was even alive, had blurred into one from the moment he heard that the man who had stolen that woman from him had also raped her. He had been temporarily insane but for that to work, he was meant to show some form of remorse or regret for the action he had taken that day. He wasn't supposed to mention that if he could do it all over again, he would do the exact same thing.

He still maintained he wasn't guilty though, no crime had been committed as far as he could see. The man who had tortured those teenage girls was gone, the person who had done so many terrible things was dead, what crime had he committed?

* * *

 _There were arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her back as she screamed out Mona's name. Spencer held Hanna to her chest, tried to tell her to stop fighting her, but Hanna's eyes were only focused on the dyed blonde hair of her friend. The tears fell fast and heavy, her sobs were ugly, and as much as she tried to fight how tightly Spencer's arms were holding her in the spot, it didn't take long for her knees to buckle as she let out another scream. When the figure disappeared and the body of the person Hanna had already mourned once, dropped to the ground, the brunette finally let go of her best friend so the blonde could scramble up and run over to her._

 _By the time she had got there, Mona was still breathing and Hanna thought, naively, for just a second, that she would be okay. But then she glanced down at the blood, her face paling when she saw the amount that seemed to be pouring from the tiny body of the first person who had truly made her feel accepted. Quickly, she pulled Mona close to her and ran her fingers through her hair, ignoring the three stab wounds that caused the blood to cover the shirt she had been wearing. "It's going to be okay," She whispered, pulling Mona as close as she possibly could, her lips pressing against her hairline as she cried._

 _A cough emitted from the pale, shaking girl as she looked up at her best friend and gave her a small smile, her hand moving to gently touch Hanna's cheek, "D-do you really... forgive me?" She managed to get out, her voice weak but determined. Hanna didn't hesitate to nod her head, "I forgave you the moment I got my head around it, you were sick and I never forgot how much you did for me before that. I forgave you a long time ago." Hanna could only hope Mona heard her before her eyes fell to a close and her chest rose, and then fell for the final time._

 _She sat there for hours, cradling the dead body of her friend, completely forgiving her for everything she had ever put them through. Mona had been through hell and back as well, the least she deserved was their forgiveness._

Hanna sat up quickly, holding the cover closer to her body as she shook her head, as though somehow that would rid her of the memory that she had tried to keep back. It had been a while since she had thought of Mona in that way, she had always tried to cling to the memories of her being alive, happy, tried to remember all the times they had spent together shopping, laughing, as she gave Hanna a place she could finally belong.

Her eyes glanced over at the clock next to her bed, watching as the number flashed up, showing it as the early hours of the day Caleb's trial would start and for a moment, she asked herself, what would Mona have done? And she knew, more than anything, she had to fight as Caleb had done for her for so long. He deserved that from her, in the very least.


	13. Chapter 13

**Apologies for the terribly long wait! But here is the next chapter of this story! Thank you very much for your reviews and please let me know what you think!**

 **Thank you once again for your patience!**

* * *

" _She looked up. 'What I can't figure out is why the good things always end.'_

 _'Everything ends.'_

 _'Not some things. Not the bad things. They never go away.'_

 _'Yes, they do. If you let them, they go away. Not as fast as we'd like sometimes, but they end too. What doesn't end is the way we feel about each other. Even when you're all grown up and somewhere else, you can remember what a good time we had together. Even when you're in the middle of bad things and they never seem to be changing, you can remember me. And I'll remember you." - Torey L Hayden_

* * *

Hanna's hands shook as she gripped onto the chair, looking out at the court room that was filled with people – some she knew, but most were strangers. The blonde took a deep breath and tried her best to hold her head high, to look the lawyer in the eyes and try and remember everything she had gone over with Caleb's defence lawyer, and Spencer. She needed to be as strong as she possibly could if she wanted Caleb to be allowed to come home with her in the near future. Slowly, her blue eyes gazed over to where the man sat, offering him the smallest of smiles before she watched the lawyer Noel's parents had hired to make Caleb suffer more than he already had.

"I'll make this quick, I know this isn't going to be easy for you." She nodded her head in response, as she bit down on her bottom lip. She had only started to talk in the aftermath of being kidnapped again and it was still a working progress, she was still trying to get used to the sound of her own voice and her throat ached increasingly with every word that fell from her lips. Talking to Spencer a few days before, talking about how she needed to be in that court room, the things she needed to say, the way she should behave to give Caleb a better chance, it was the most she had spoken in a long time and Hanna had found after five minutes, it physically hurt to speak. She wanted to say as little as she possibly could in the moments that didn't matter, so she could say everything that needed to be said in response to the things that did matter. "We've already discussed the part Noel had to play in your kidnapping, both the first and the second time, there is no denying that he was guilty of the crimes in which he was accused so I'm not going to ask you to go over every single second."

Relief washed over her, that had been the one thing she had been most afraid of but, as Spencer had testified the day before, she had been informed by her best friend that the prosecution were not denying the fact Noel Kahn was a cold-hearted criminal. He had done things that simply could not be forgiven but they were arguing that despite this, despite all of the things he had done, the people he had made suffer, he was a _victim_ who deserved to have the chance to sit where Caleb was sitting right then. Spencer had also warned her of the other side of their argument – how Noel had been an emotionally disturbed young man who suffered after the death of one of his closest friends, a death that had been caused by Spencer and Hanna who he subsequently kidnapped.

The man who was being so gentle to her, who tried to speak to her softly and kindly was also the person who was trying to justify the fact she and her friend had been kidnapped. Hanna knew she couldn't fall into his trap, he wanted her to trust him and then, she was entirely certain, he was going to try and break her. "But I am going to ask you about the events that led up to the moment Caleb Rivers shot and killed Noel Kahn. Can you tell us in your own words about what happened?"

Hanna took a deep breath, her eyes searching the room for those of Spencer's who was now sitting in the court room following her own testimony. Hanna needed the support of her best friend, not wanting to mess this up – after all, if Caleb hadn't shot Noel there and then, she wouldn't have a living, breathing best friend. "Um, Noel made us watch videos of ourselves when we were... the first time we were taken and I-I," She cleared her throat, it stung already, a painful reminder of all those years she had gone through hell and had found the one way to cope that had given her some form of control. That was gone, and Hanna was reminded of the fact she was talking to a room full of strangers about something that was so deeply personal, and something she had yet to come to terms with because her entire life was so focused on getting Caleb out of there and back home where he belonged.

"He raped me, I was unconscious when it happened and I don't know how many times..." She would never know, she supposed and she had no idea if that was a good thing or not. "But he showed me and then there was all this other footage, reminding us of those three years we spent down there and then... it stopped. And suddenly he was in the room with us and there was this look in his eyes. He asked if... if we enjoyed the show..." She trailed off in an attempt to stop the tears that so longed to fall down her face. "I didn't know what to do, he was going to kill us and I just... I thought maybe if I could do something then Spencer would be able to get away and _someone_ would be able to find out what he had done and who he was. But... he never fed us when we were there and I was so tired and I could barely stand without my body just wanting to collapse so I attacked him but he was able to punch me before Spencer could leave."

Her hand moved to gently press against her cheek when she was reminded of the pains he had felt radiating through it when his fist had made that contact with her face. The words she had just spoken was just the easy part, but the words that were going to follow was part of the lie she had created with Alison and Spencer to ensure that Caleb's innocence would go unquestioned. She was unconscious when he shot Noel, she hadn't known what had happened until the two women had sat her down and explained that the charges were entirely true. But just because Caleb had done what they said he did, just because Noel wasn't a threat to them in the moment he had been shot, it didn't mean that Caleb was guilty or that he deserved to go to prison for the rest of his life for murdering someone who had done so much damage.

"I blacked out, it must have only been for a few seconds and when I opened my eyes again, Alison and Caleb were there. Noel had his arm wrapped around Spencer and the knife was pressed to her throat, I could see the blood dripping down onto her top and Caleb had the gun pointed at him. But then Noel dug the knife in further, he didn't say anything, but Caleb asked him to drop the knife and to let Spencer walk away but he just wouldn't let go. He held her tighter and I thought she was going to die, we all did... he was going to kill her. But then he shot him... a-and... Caleb isn't a killer, he cried when it happened, he was devastated. He wasn't happy about taking another persons life..."

Each word felt like she had swallowed a razor blade, as she croaked out each one and then pressed her hand to her throat in an attempt to regain what little use of her voice she had left. She needed to be able to continue, for Caleb, for Spencer, for Mona... for herself.

"Why did your boyfriend have the gun in the first place?"The man stepped a little closer to the stand, causing Hanna to immediately tense up as her hands moved towards her thighs and she dug her nails into the skin there to regain any sense of composure she possibly could.

"He was coming to save us, he knew how dangerous Noel was and he wanted to protect us and himself. If he hadn't brought the gun, Spencer would be dead and I probably would as well." Her voice feigned a confidence she didn't feel in that moment, but she looked towards Caleb and nodded her head a little to let him know that she was okay. Or as close to okay as she possibly could be considering everything they had all been through. She gulped when the lawyer spoke again, but the words barely registered in her mind, and the way he was looking over at the jury, it seemed as though he was mostly talking to them anyway – bringing a gun showed intent, as though Caleb knew he was going to have to use it to get them out of there. Wasn't there other options? Why did he have to shoot him in the manner he did? Wouldn't it have made much more sense for him to shoot him in the leg, or the arm, or perhaps not shot him at all and done what he should have done. Called the police, waited for them to do their jobs and then instead of him having to stand there and prosecute Caleb Rivers for a senseless murder, he would be standing there with Noel Kahn being the defendant who would finally have to face the crimes he committed.

It all came down to that simple matter – if Caleb knew where Hanna and Spencer was being held, why did he go in there with a weapon, without calling the police? But Hanna tore her eyes from her boyfriend to look at the man who could have been somewhat of a friend if it were Noel sitting in the chair Caleb currently occupied, "I don't know what Caleb was thinking in that moment but I know there have been plenty of moments in my lifetime where I should have called the police and I didn't because I was scared of what would happen if I did. It's so easy for you to stand there and say what he should have done and what would have been the best thing for him to do and I'm sure he agrees with you but in that moment, he made a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life but in that moment, it was the right thing to do. If we had been in that room any longer with Noel on our own, I have no doubt Spencer and I wouldn't be in this court room to see Noel face any of his crimes. He was going to kill us, and Caleb saved our lives. Did he do it the right way? Perhaps not. But did he do the right thing? Yes."

When he announced that he had no further questions, Hanna couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of relief at the slight defeat in his eyes before he sat back down and the blonde watched instead as Caleb's lawyer moved towards her. He greeted her warmly, his voice gentle as he approached her, wary of his steps because Hanna was prone to flinching or tensing up if anyone made a sudden movement. Sometimes, she questioned whether she could be called a rape victim in it's very essence – as she had said to her mother a few months prior, was she truly a victim if she didn't remember it happened? - but then there were moments, those darker, more terrifying moments when she _felt_ as though she had been raped. Flashes of him on top of her would cause her to stumble back and flinch away from the person nearest to her and she had no idea if she was actually remembering what had happened or if her imagination was running wild with the small bits it already knew.

"I know this must be hard for you – coming back after three years to find Caleb waiting for you, having never given up... only for him to be arrested for protecting you a few months later. I know you already went over the events of what happened that led to Noel Kahn's death, so I'm going to ask you to tell me how you feel now that he's gone."

Hanna took a moment to think about her answer carefully, she didn't want to let Caleb down, she knew he wanted more than anything to come home to her. He couldn't protect her from behind bars and she couldn't start to move on with her life without him, as long as he was gone, she was stuck in an awful limbo that consumed her. "Mostly relief, I know that if he was in this court room right now, I would have to go over every single awful moment, from the first and the second time... everything he did to me and my friends would be questioned and with him gone, I'm relieved I don't have to go through that. None of us do." She sighed, "It would have been nice to get justice though, but with him completely gone, it's nice not to worry anymore. I managed to sleep without the light on for the first time in so long the other day, I'm starting to sleep in my bed instead of huddled in my closet... I'm not scared all the time. I was getting exhausted of being terrified that something else was going to happen to me or someone I loved, we've lived in this... fear since we were fifteen years old and I just... I'm glad it's over."

"And do you still love Caleb?"

This question was easy to answer, and Hanna gave a small smile as she wiped at the tears that had fallen down her face, "More than ever. He made a mistake that day, not phoning the police first.. bringing a gun, but it was a mistake made with the best of intentions. After everything we've been through, he, our friends, our families... they all suffered too and unfortunately, Caleb developed a distrust of law enforcement and I don't blame him because I felt it, too. No one believed him when we first went missing, he believed nobody looked hard enough, he thought more could have been done, that we never should have been arrested in the first place and put in the position where we could be taken. He had a few run ins with the law after... whilst I was missing... but everything he did was through grief, confusion and fear. He's not a bad person, I've loved him for so long and I still can't believe he waited for me, he could have given up and moved on but he believed so much that I would be okay and that I would come home to him. He waited and he believed for that long and then it was about to be taken away from him again, can anyone blame him for the decisions he made that day?"

The lawyer smiled at her, and then looked over at the jury, and Hanna knew she had done well. She was being strong which was all Caleb needed right then from her. "So, would you say that in the moment Caleb Rivers went into that room and saw Noel Kahn standing there with you on the floor, and Spencer held against him with a weapon to her neck... do you think in that moment he could be described as temporarily insane?"

"Objection your honour, this witness is not an expert-"

"I'm trying to gather her personal opinion on the matter, I am in no way stating she is an expert but as one of our only witnesses to the crime.." The judge waved him off, "I'll allow it but the jury should be aware that this is not the opinion of a psychologist."

Hanna waited for the nod of the head from the man before she started to talk, "I believe so, yes. He wasn't thinking straight, three years of hell put him in that room and even before that, he had to suffer for years alongside my friends and I because of what Charlotte and Noel put us through. If I thought I was going to lose him after everything that has happened, I know I wouldn't be able to make the best decisions either."

"Thank you, Hanna." She felt her shoulders relax when he moved back towards his seat with the announcement that he had no more questions for the woman before she was allowed to step down. Quickly, she wrapped an arm around herself when she walked past the table her boyfriend was sitting at, resisting the urge to run towards him and wrap her arms tightly around the man so she could tell him that everything was going to be okay. Whether he spent ten years, five years or one year in prison, she would be waiting for him as he had done for her.

* * *

Caleb had insisted on taking the stand so he could defend himself and his actions that day. He had heard experts speak on his behalf, he had heard Hanna's, Alison's and Spencer's words – knowing Hanna's towards the end were completely made up considering she had been knocked out cold when he had arrived at the scene – it was his turn to try and fight for himself. Once he sat down, he looked over to where his parents were, it was the first time he had seen them together since he was a child, but there they sat, their shoulders touching and their eyes completely focused on him. Maybe his mother hadn't been the best one in the world and maybe neither of them had made the right decision when it came to his childhood but they had been there as an endless support over the past four years. Even more so when he had been arrested, both of them had been quick in temporarily moving closer to Rosewood, staying at the Radley at a reduced rate thanks to his second mother, Ashley Marin. He had no idea what he would have done without the family that had gathered to be his crutch since the day they had heard of his arrest.

He gathered the strength he needed in the eyes of Claudia; although she had left him when he was just five years old, she was there for him right then when he needed her the most. He was at his most vulnerable in that moment and there she was, alongside Jamie who had been another stable feature in Caleb's life since the day he had found out the man was his father. Jamie had been a victim of the entire A drama as well, not physically but they had managed to plant the seed of doubt in Caleb's head and he had almost pushed the man away. Jamie and Claudia knew what it was like to make mistakes, they understood what it was to make an error in judgement and he needed that understanding from his parents to help get him through it.

Sitting next to Claudia was Hanna, and every so often, Caleb was comforted by the way Claudia would glance at the young woman next to her, moving her hand to brush Hanna's hair back behind her ear or whisper something to her that would make Hanna relax just a little. And then next to the blonde was the red head who had been there for him since he had started dating her daughter all those years ago. Knowing she was there to support Hanna was all he needed to know that even if this didn't go in his favour, even if he were to spend the rest of his life in prison, Ashley would be there for Hanna and hopefully, convince her that she would need to move on with her life because Caleb didn't want to be responsible for Hanna never being able to move forward.

When the prosecution stepped towards him, asking another question, he took a deep breath and tried to remind himself that he had to stay calm. He couldn't get angry, even if the person in front of him was insisting he was a murderer, even if he was screaming at him to admit what he had done was done with intent. "You found out where Hanna was and you decided that you were going to murder Noel Kahn no matter what! You didn't make a phone call to the police, you got an unlicensed weapon and made your way straight to where you knew he would be and then you shot him point blank in the head knowing there would be no chance of survival!"

Caleb only shook his head, "I did what I thought I had to. I can't sit here and pretend as though I know exactly what was going through my head that day, I was in a haze... I focused on getting Hanna and Spencer back alive and that was all I cared about. I needed to get them out of there and I needed for them to be safe. I took the gun to threaten him, that was all I was going to do... I was going to point it at him and take the girls with me before we phoned the police." His voice was calm, his words careful before he shook his head, "Then Alison told me that he had raped Hanna when she was gone the first time... and that's when everything changed. I had the gun in my hand and I remember moving towards the room I knew they were and I could hear him talking and then there he was, Hanna was on the floor and he had a knife pressed to Spencer's throat and I could see blood. I could see the fear in her eyes and I... I hated him. I hated him more than I have ever hated anyone, but I didn't intend to kill him that day. I wanted him to suffer, I wanted him to go through this, I wanted him to end up in prison for the rest of his life for everything he did and every person he had made suffer but instead, he's gone and I have to live with that for the rest of my life."

His voice cracked and the tears fell, and instead of wiping them away, he just looked up at the man with a small shrug of his shoulders, "I am sorry for what I did but I am glad that Hanna and our friends don't have to suffer anymore."

"So their suffering was more important than the life of a young man?"

"And his life was more important than their suffering?" He shot back, with a raised brow, "He wasn't just any young man, he was a stalker, a kidnapper, a rapist, a sadist... he got off on the way he made those girls suffer. Maybe his life was important to the people who loved him but there was a lot of people who suffered at his hands and those people were important too."

And so it went on. Every single time he could feel himself cracking as he was screamed at, accused and berated, his eyes would move over to where Ashley, Hanna and his parents sat and he would tell himself that if they could be strong for him, then he could be strong as well. He wanted to go home to them, he needed to be home. He needed to fight for his right to be at home where he belonged because Hanna deserved that in the very least. He had spent so long fighting for her, he had almost forgotten how to fight for himself but in that moment, he knew how important it was.

* * *

"The jury is back."

Hanna repeated the words in her head as her mother drove her back to the court house, her hands shaking as she tried to tell herself that the fact they were only out for one day could only mean something good. Maybe they saw Caleb for what he was – a good person who just loved his girlfriend and his friends. A person who made a mistake that he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

The moment she was sitting in the same place she had been for the entire trial, her hand gripped onto Claudia's and then her own mothers as she took a deep, shaking breath. Her eyes focused on the man who stood up with a sheet of paper in his hands. He fumbled slightly with his glasses when the judge addressed him, announcing they had made a decision by which they all agreed before the judge nodded her head before she read out the first of the charges, "On the count of murder in the first degree, how do you find the defendant?"

Hanna gripped onto both of the women a little tighter as they all tensed and watched with baited breath in the hopes that this would be the day Caleb would come home with them. Slowly, Hanna moved her blue eyes to the back of Caleb's head as she watched him, wanting to feel the safety of his arms wrapped around her once again. Eventually, her eyes closed and she tried to focus on the words that would be falling from the fumbling man's mouth, the piece of paper in his hands holding the fate of her lover.


End file.
